


i guess it's half timing (and the other half's luck)

by lettersfromnowhere



Series: Just Haven’t Met You Yet [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Copious tag-team matchmaking, F/M, High School AU, I didn’t know what to do with Groot so I sorta just wrote him out, Oops, The most OOC iteration of Nebula you will ever see, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, fic so cheesy they call me the Dairy Queen, i have 0 idea what I'm doing guys!!! - Freeform, occasionally veers into "disgustingly wholesome" territory, unrealistically clean depictions of teenage culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-14 19:06:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 18,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14775470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere
Summary: Peter Quill has every intention of making his senior year of high school one to remember. A state football championship, and maybe a date with the girl he's been in love with for three years, seem like just what he needs make that happen. It could be a perfect year, save for one small problem: his lack of concern for his academic career has wound him up academically ineligible to play football unless he can get his grades up within two weeks.Peter's got less than a month to turn around his entire year. It's a tall order, but he's found what seems to be a perfect solution: the school's got a peer tutoring program - and it's conveniently organized by none other than his unrequited longtime crush, Gamora. With the help of his loyal posse, and an unlikely ally in Gamora's terrifying sister, Peter thinks he's got this all in the bag.But reality's never that simple, now is it?





	1. already out a foolproof idea (so don't ask me how to get started)

**Author's Note:**

> This is incredibly strange, and probably terrible, but I thought it was a fun idea, so here it is. I seriously apologize for how out of character everyone is, heh...sorry? I cannot stress enough how awful this is, but I hope you can let go of the expectation that this will have a coherent plot and not go off on tangents and have fun with it :). 
> 
> Oh, also, human Nebula is a biker type in this, because I can see that for some reason. 
> 
> (Title source: "Haven't Met You Yet" by Michael Buble. Yup. I actually am addicted to naming things after song lyrics.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A problem is identified, a solution is proposed, and Peter Quill needs some serious help in all areas. 
> 
> (Title source: "Uncharted" by Sara Bareilles.)

In the three years that Rocket had known the Elk Creek High School football team’s captain, he had learned that for all his athletic and personal merits (not that he’d ever admit to seeing any, of course), not much was to be expected from Peter Quill as a student. But _this,_ even for Quill, was unprecedented.  _How do you even..._ Rocket shook his head.

 _"Dude."_ He gaped at the progress report with a disappointing absence of surprise, shaking his head. "This was the" - he emphasized with a quotation-mark gesture - "'incredibly urgent' problem you made me run halfway across campus for?"

 _"What?"_ Peter whined. "It's not my fa-"

"Right," Rocket huffed, feeling altogether too much like the most responsible person in the room.  "Because it's _totally_ your math teacher's fault that you have a D- in his class."

Rocket shuddered, adjusting his jacket. He _hated_ being the responsible one.

"What I was _saying_ when you so _rudely_ interrupted me was that it is not my fault that the concussion excuse didn't work! I would have been _fine_ if-"

"Because you can definitely get away with 'having a concussion' every other day," Rocket spat. "Quill's got another concussion? After the four he's had in the last two weeks? And yet he's still at every football game, never even benched? Oh, yeah, that sure sounds legit."

"Rocket, you're missing the _point,"_ Peter sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"Which is?" Rocket raised an eyebrow quizzically.

"I'm academically ineligible."

"As in?" He inquired, knowing full well what Peter meant.

He sighed heavily, staring at the opposite wall. "I can't play until I get my grades up."

"How" - Rocket began, cut off by a raucous burst of laughter - "did" - he choked on his words - "you not" - another choke - "see this coming?" He finally managed to wheeze, collapsing against a locker, laughing hysterically.

"I mean, I know I'm not exactly a straight-A student," Peter started, shifting uncomfortably, "but I kinda figured it'd work out better than _this.”_

“It isn’t as if you _tried_ to solve the problem,” a voice piped up from across the hall. “Unless, as your friend just pointed out, you think telling Mr. Ruiz and everyone else that you had a concussion any time you didn’t feel like doing the work constitutes ‘effort.’” They turned to face the speaker.

“Oh, _fantastic,”_ Rocket spat under his breath. “Just who I was hoping to run into!”

“Nice to see you too,” the speaker countered icily, popping her gum; evidently she’d heard that. It took all Rocket had to keep enough composure not let out a string of profanity that could’ve razed a forest. As if his best friend’s latest scrape wasn’t enough to deal with, he’d probably just landed himself on Nebula’s hit list, and she was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a good person whose bad side to be on.

“Hey, Nebula,” Peter cut in nonchalantly, totally ignoring the tense exchange between his friend and the intruder. “How’s stuff?”

Nebula glared at him, gripping the lapels of her leather jacket even tighter. “Hey. Sorry for your loss.” She snickered.

“Of…?” He raised his eyebrows, genuinely nonplussed; his expression shifted more and more towards concern the more he thought about it. “Oh, man, did someone die?”

“No, no one died, except maybe our shot at winning state. Your GPA, genius,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “How’s that 1.4 feel now?” 

“Why does she hate me so much?” Peter muttered to Rocket, who shrugged, under his breath. “Why do you hate me so much?” He asked her, audibly this time.

“I don’t, I just think you’re an imbecile,” she responded, turning to grab something from her locker. “And you really don’t need to make it _so_ obvious that you’re obsessed with my sister.”

“I am _not_ obsessed with her!” Peter yelped, cheeks flushing an infuriatingly obvious shade of tomato-red.

“Oh, please,” she snickered. “You couldn’t even ask her about the art homework yesterday without stuttering.”

Peter’s face fell. “She told you that?”

“She’s not stupid, Quill. She knows the signs.” Nebula glared at him. “And she isn’t following them.”

Rocket cleared his throat. _“Anyway,”_ he interjected, “you planning on doing anything about this or not? Don’t make me run the numbers on our chances of winning state without you-“

“Of course I am,” Peter responded. “But what?”

“Open a textbook for once in your life,” Nebula suggested flippantly, walking off with a stack of papers.

“She’s not wrong, you know,” Rocket suggested, then shuddered. “I never thought I’d actually agree with a wannabe biker chick, but she has a point. You’ve gotta actually start trying.”

“Or you could cheat,” Nebula suggested again, lingering at the end of the hallway. “That works too.”

“Or that,” Rocket concurred. “ _Twice?_ I agreed with her _twice?_ Eugh.”

Peter shifted his gaze around the hallway uncomfortably. “Yeah, I guess, but… _wait.”_ His eyes came to rest on a bulletin board across the hallway. Rocket followed his gaze to the poster that’d grabbed his attention. Nebula, still standing at the end of the hallway, smirked knowingly.

 _Oh, this is going to be_ good, she thought. 

“A peer tutoring program?” Rocket read, more than a bit surprised. Peter was not the type to seek out homework help - but these were not normal times. “Okay, that could work…I mean, cheating’s easier, but-“

“No, this is better.” Peter’s eyes shone with something Rocket couldn’t entirely pinpoint.

“How is going to hang out with the nerds every day better than copying off of them in class?” Rocket asked. “Enlighten me, please. I’m _dying_ to know.”

“Read the fine print,” Peter instructed his friend, sounding oddly excited about the prospect of something that would have made his stomach turn just a few days ago.

Rocket scanned the poster. “Meets 3 PM in the library every day, blah blah blah, homework help, okay, whatever, for more information contact – _oh.”_ He couldn’t help but grin evilly. “Oh, _now_ I get it.”

The poster’s final line: “For more information, please contact gamorazw@echstutoring.net.”

“Think about it,” Peter explained. “It’s a perfect setup! I get my grades up, and Gamora can’t ignore me if I’m asking for help with math!”

“Dude.” Rocket sighed. “You are the most pathetic life form I have ever met.”

“Likewise!” He hollered, walking off with more bravado than one would expect of someone whose lack of academic effort had just backfired so epically.

This would be interesting, to say the least.


	2. maybe I played my cards wrong (oh, just a little bit wrong)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This tutoring thing isn't off to the best start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sincerely apologize for the amount of math jargon in this chapter. Heh. I promise I'll have more character development/exposition later on - I just have to set the story up first. Title is from "Dive" by Ed Sheeran. 
> 
> (Also, yes, the ending was a total ripoff of *that* scene from Volume 2 - you'll know it when you see it.)

Striding into the library with entirely feigned swagger, clutching at least a quarter of his weight in textbooks, Peter had never felt more out of his element.

It didn’t help that he had no idea where he was supposed to be going, either; the front desk seemed a safe place to start.

“Um…excuse me?” He asked the preoccupied librarian, uncharacteristically timid.

“Yes?” She turned to face him with a sigh even the groan of her rusty office chair as it turned couldn’t mask.  

“Would you happen to know where the…tutoring…thing…is?” He asked, all too aware that the librarian was staring pointedly at him, nearly slackjawed.

“Never thought I’d see the day,” she muttered in a voice he clearly wasn’t supposed to hear. “Back right corner.”

“T-thanks,” he stammered. Peter hadn’t exactly expected this to be a good time, but it was off to an even less auspicious start than he’d expected. He made his way over to the cluster of tables in the back of the library, by the reference books no one had touched in years.

“Hello, are you here for tutoring?” Asked a slight, nervous girl with glasses half the size of her face at one of the tables. “Please check in first.” She held out a sign-in sheet and tried to smile, but looked as if she were having a root canal.

“You look as if you are in pain,” the student she was evidently tutoring – a muscle-bound guy with poorly-concealed tattoos (very much against the dress code) whom Peter vaguely recognized as Drax, a member of the wrestling team – informed her.

“I do?” The girl looked quite upset at the news. She looked up at Peter again. “I am sorry if my facial expression caused you distress.”

“Nah,” he answered. “You’re fine. Where do I go…?”

“That depends on what you need to work on. I only help with English,” she explained, “and if you need math or science-“

“What if I need both?” _And about three other classes she hasn’t even mentioned yet,_ he thought sheepishly.

“Start with math and science, then,” she decided. “You’ll be working with Gamora for those classes. I’m Mantis, by the way. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance!” She waved, friendly but tense, as he walked off. Peter didn’t notice; his mind was otherwise-occupied. 

_Okay, this is your chance to make an impression. Keep your cool and –_

“Heeeeey,” Peter announced, trying to look suave as he approached Gamora’s table.

Gamora raised one eyebrow several inches, entirely unimpressed with this greeting. “Afternoon, Peter. Never thought I’d see you here,” she replied.

“Yeah, until about twelve hours ago, I didn’t think I’d ever see me here either.” He set his books down – well, if he were being honest with himself, dropped them, sweaty palms making a smooth landing impossible – and pulled out a chair.

“Yeah, I know. Nebula told me you were declared academically ineligible.”

Peter’s face blanched. “She told you that?”

“She also told me she advised you to cheat, but you insisted upon coming here instead.”

“Little snitch,” Peter huffed.

“Let me make one thing clear, Quill,” Gamora continued, pointing at him rather threateningly with one of the Japanese fountain pens she always used. “You had better only be here to raise your grades, because if you have an ulterior motive of _any kind,_ I _can_ and _will_ slit your throat.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Peter answered coolly, masking his nerves. “And I can assure you that I do not have any ‘ulterior motives,’ whatever those are. I’m only here because I can’t let the team down, you know?”

“Right,” Gamora countered tartly. “Anyway. What do you need help with?”

“Uh, everything, but we should probably start with math.” He unearthed an overstuffed notebook, a calculator and several pencils from his gargantuan heap of paper.

“All right. What are you working on right now?” She settled into an unreadable expression - _probably her professional face,_ Peter concluded. 

“Conic sections,” Peter sighed. “I would _love_ to know why I need to be able to find the equation for an oval-“

“Ellipse,” Gamora corrected him with a mild undertone of disgust in her voice. 

“Yeah, _ellipse,_ whatever. Anyway. I don’t know how to do any of it, and frankly, I don’t care, but I apparently need to learn it, so…” He trailed off, handing Gamora a stapled packet of unfinished problems.

“Homework?”

“Yeah.” Peter shrugged. “Don’t get it.”

She glanced over the first page and nodded decisively –  _not too bad._ “Okay, so the first one is asking you to find the foci of this hyperbola. The foci are equal to plus or minus C, which can be found using the formula C-squared equals a-squared minus b-squared. All you have to do is plug in–“

Gamora stopped short, realizing her pupil was staring intently at her with a vacant look on his face that didn’t bode well for either his personal safety or his retention of the material. “Quill! Are you listening to a word I’m saying?”

“Sorry, wha?” Peter blinked emphatically, refocusing his vision and mentally berating himself for having been caught staring.

“Foci of a hyperbola,” Gamora snapped, trying too hard to look like she didn’t feel an overwhelming desire to stab him. “Do you remember _anything_ I just said?”

“Sure. C-squared equals a-squared minus b-squared,” he repeated, crossing his fingers that what he remembered from a lecture he’d half-paid attention to was relevant enough to convince her that he’d been listening.

“Well then,” Gamora continued, shaking her head ever so slightly. “It seems as if you should be able to do this problem without my help.” She slid the paper back to him.

“Oh, right.” He punched a few numbers into his calculator and nodded, writing down the result. “It’s at zero, square root of fourteen, right?”

She reclaimed the paper and raised her eyebrows. He was right, shocking as that was. _He can’t really be struggling because he doesn’t get it, can he…_

 “Let me ask you something, Peter. How many assignments have you intentionally not turned in this semester?”

“…I’ve lost count,” Peter admitted.

“Figures. You seem to understand this material better than your grade would indicate.” She shook her head, tossing her black curls.

 _Nononono don’t stare!_ Peter warned himself, wondering why he had ever thought that being tutored by the (unrequited) love of his life was a good idea. Trying to conceal his shaken composure, he shot her a wounded stare. “I have to deal with enough stress from football. Why would I want to add to that with homework?”

“Because football is not going to pay your bills,” Gamora snapped. “See how many of these you can do on your own, please.”

“Neither is homework!” Peter countered.

“But it’ll get you into college,” she answered. “I already told you to see how many problems you could do on your own. Please cooperate before I do something I’ll regret.” Gamora pursed her lips, turning to her laptop and resuming whatever she’d been doing before he arrived.

“Uh, is this right?” Peter asked after a few minutes, sliding the packet back to Gamora with a sheepish expression.

“Number sixteen?” She asked, scanning the paper. “The directrix should be the x-coordinate of the center plus P, so…yes, that looks correct.”

“Okay, good.” He took back the paper and scratched out another problem. She didn’t know what compelled her to do it, but occasionally Gamora found herself eyeing him thoughtfully as he worked.

 _He’s not half-bad at this. If only he weren’t so lazy,_ she thought. _Waste of good looks, if you ask me._

 _No, don’t…_ she checked herself. _You can’t encourage him._

“So let me get this straight,” she started. “You became academically ineligible solely because you refuse to do any work, and _not_ out of any lack of understanding of the material?”

“Well…no…eh, whatever, yeah. There’s some stuff that I don’t get, but that’s pretty much what happened.” Peter scratched the back of his neck. “I kinda can’t do that anymore, though.”

“You don’t say,” Gamora sighed. “You would be just fine if you’d actually put some thought and effort into anything besides football.” 

“I _do_ think about things other than football!” He protested.

“Like?” Gamora prompted.

“Uh…” he thought for a moment. “Well, uh, I think about you!” He blurted out before he had a chance to consider what he was saying.

Gamora’s eyes narrowed and she desperately willed herself to conceal the blush rising in her cheeks. “ _Excuse_ me?” She asked icily. 

“Quill just admitted that he is in love with Gamora!” Drax shouted from the opposite table. “He must be dying of humiliation! No doubt she will shortly vanquish him in combat-“

“Shut your face or I will do it for you,” Gamora snarled. Peter could not determine whether she’d meant that for himself or Drax – or maybe both.

He let his head slam against the table, wondering if the promising start to this afternoon could possibly go any further south.


	3. anything for you to notice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coffee is always the answer. 
> 
> (Again, check your expectations of anything other than tooth-rotting fluff at the door. ;) Chapter title is from "Classic" by MKTO.)

Nebula could not in a million years have predicted that she’d wind up spending a good chunk of her lunch period at her locker attempting to advise a mortified Peter Quill on the best way to prevent her sister from murdering him upon their next meeting, but somehow, that was exactly where she’d wound up.

“You have to start taking this stuff seriously,” she closed. “She’s gonna kill you if she thinks you’re only there to get with her.”

“I _am,”_ Peter protested. “You think I _like_ being benched?”

“’Football’s not the  _only_ thing I think about,’” Nebula taunted, a wicked grin taking shape on her face. “I don’t care how much you know about conic sections, that’s getting you beaten up.”

For the first time in four years, Nebula thought she could see a faint look on terror on the 6’-something quarterback’s face. She smiled wryly. This was better entertainment than those pulpy soap operas she’d sometimes watched through the neighbor lady’s window as a kid.

“Also, it’d probably help ya out if you immediately forgot you’d ever been in love with her,” she finished, sauntering off with a satisfying _pop_ as the gum she was chewing formed a perfect sphere and snapped.

“ _Nebula, please,”_ he huffed. “Your sister is the most gorgeous human being I have ever laid eyes on and I’m just supposed to forget that she exists because I have to interact with her now?”

“If that’s the only reason you’re so into her, might as well.” Nebula leaned casually into a doorway, fixing Peter with her best judgemental stare.

“You know it isn’t,” he sighed.

“Oh?” She popped another gum bubble, smirking. This would be an _excellent_ source of blackmail material.     

“Because she’s practically a genius, she could probably beat me in a fistfight – _wait.”_ He paused suddenly, redder in the face than was probably healthy. “You do realize that Gamora told me you tell her everything, so now I’m not gonna tell you anything, because I know you’ll just turn around and tell Gamora?”

“You’re making even less sense than usual, Quill.”

“You’re a snitch. Not giving you information,” Peter explained.

“You already did, though.”

“I truly hate you.”

“Likewise. Oh, and if you want to stop her from killing you on sight, get her a chai tea latte. She lives off of those things,” Nebula advised. “Good luck. I sincerely hope you fail!”

“Thanks,” he scoffed, visibly perking up anyways.

 _Coffee? That’s all it takes?_ Peter smiled to himself. _I’ll do that, then._

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You’re late,” Mantis remarked as Peter made his way over to the tutoring corner of the library that afternoon, glancing at a wall clock across the library.

“Only a few minutes,” Peter replied, setting down the cardboard tray of drinks in his hands to sign in. Mantis eyed it curiously for a few seconds and her eyes lit up.

“You brought her a latte!” She cried, clasping her hands together and looking as if she were about to swoon. “That is so sweet of you!”

“Thanks, but…” He sighed, scratching the back of his neck. “I’m kinda trying not to make a huge thing out of this, since she already wants to murder me as is.”

“Oh, she does!” Mantis replied brightly. “She told me yesterday that she hoped you would never come back here.”

“That’s…nice,” he sighed. “Uh, it okay if I work on English today? I have an essay due on Thursday.”

“Sure, but don’t you want to give Gamora her latte first?” She replied all too loudly, tilting her head slightly. Her bulky glasses slipped down her nose. Gamora abruptly looked up. Mantis met her eyes with as sly of a look as her guileless self could muster.   
  


“So much for ‘not a big deal,’” Peter huffed. “Guess I have to now.”

“Those are expensive,” Mantis pointed out. “You cannot  _possibly_ have been planning on not giving it to her, could you?”

“Well, no…”

“Then go!” Mantis practically squealed. “Gogogogo!” She gesticulated excitedly in Gamora’s direction, and Peter, sighing heavily, walked off, one hand buried in his back pocket, with the tray of drinks.

“Uh, hey, Gamora,” he started. “I thought you might need one of these after that physics exam.”

 _Wait, how would I know about that if I weren’t kinda obsessed with her? Don’t sound like a stalker,_ he admonished himself. “I mean, uh, I-I’m sorry about the…scene yesterday.” _No, that’s worse!_ “I mean, I heard you like these-“ _gaaaah, NO, that’s the worst one yet! –_ “you know what, I’m going to leave this before I say something I’ll regret.” He set it down in front of her.

“Wait,” he started again, exchanging the drink for the other one in the tray. “Wrong drink.” His mind anywhere but on such minute details, he’d given her his own. She scanned the label.

“You got me a latte?” She asked, taken aback.

“Yeah.” He looked up at her with what he hoped was an appropriately low level of sheer adoration. “You may not get paid for this tutoring gig, but you deserve _something_ for putting up with me.”

Gamora couldn’t hold back a tiny flicker of a smile. “Thanks, Quill.”

“Any time.”

Mantis, watching the entire exchange, looked about to blow a gasket with excitement.

“ _I ship it,”_ she whispered, with a solemn air of the utmost importance, as Peter approached her table.

“Uh…thanks? Now about that essay,” he asked, pulling out his laptop.

“Right. What’s it about?” Mantis asked.

“ _Pride and Prejudice,”_ he sighed.

“Ooh, that's one of my favorite books!" Mantis promptly snatched his laptop, quickly scanned the page, and began to type. "Let’s see what you have so far.”

“Mantis, you do realize you can’t write his essay for him?” Gamora warned her.

“You’re such an ISTP,” Mantis pouted, “killjoy. You _know_ how much I love this book-”

“Yeah, but you can’t seriously be telling me you _want_ to write Quill’s papers for him.”

“Just this one,” she defended pathetically.

“What’s an ISTP?” Peter cut in.

“Mantis likes typing people,” Gamora explained. “Just go with it.”

“Typing…people?”

“I enjoy analyzing people’s personalities to determine which Myers-Briggs personality type they fit,” Mantis explained. “You, for example, are an ENTP.”

“I…see,” he replied, not understanding a word she was saying. _Note to self: look up Myers-Briggs,_ he decided.

“So, since apparently I’m not allowed to write your paper for you, I guess we should start with the thesis. You have a decent start, but I don’t know if-“

Peter sighed. This, however good Mantis’ intentions were, would be a long afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on my characterization of Mantis:   
> 1\. The MBTI typing is sort of a non-supernatural reinvention of Mantis' empathic abilities. Instead of literally being able to feel people's emotions, human Mantis is excellent at "reading" people and singularly fascinated by the Myers-Briggs system, always assigning people to MBTI types.   
> 2\. Mantis is 300% a Jane Austen fangirl in this 'verse, and NO ONE can tell me otherwise. 
> 
> And another anecdote: the coffee idea came from a friend of mine who used to bring a girl he liked coffee at school to get her attention. Cute, if unsuccessful, and it worked well here because Peter Quill is a soft bean and would do this, don't even try to deny it. 
> 
> Also, @ Mantis' "I ship it" line: me too, girl, me too (aka I'm shameless and will absolutely make a supporting character ship my OTP because I *can*).


	4. BONUS CHAPTER: everything I want us to be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: since this chapter doesn't exactly advance the plot of the story, I decided to make it a bonus chapter. Next one will be plot-relevant, so if you don't care about random character development, skip straight to that. 
> 
> Nebula and Rocket scheme, Mantis reflects, and Gamora (who is *definitely, totally not* trying to set Peter up) wonders if maybe this whole hating-Peter's-guts deal is old news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this got super off-track. Sorry, heh...went off on a super long tangent here. I felt like writing an exposition chapter, so I sort of just threw one in without any context. 
> 
> (Title is from "Imagination" by Shawn Mendes.)

After several days of nearly being murdered by his crush, Peter found himself wishing for just one completely uneventful day – nothing more, nothing less.

That, though, was not to be.

“Hey, lover boy,” Rocket greeted him that morning, “I’n’t there some sort of dance thing coming up?”

“Winter formal? Yeah,” he sighed. “Guess I’m going to get stuck going with some random cheerleader again.”

“Ya do realize that’s your own fault?”

“Aren’t football players supposed to go out with cheerleaders…?” Peter asked, rummaging in (more like wrestling with) an indiscriminate lump of belongings for something.

Rocket looked at him with an expression of pure disgust. “That,” he scoffed, “might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen you say. And considering some of the things you say on a regular basis, that is saying a _lot.”_

“What?” Peter shrugged helplessly. “It’s part of the strategy. Play to people’s expectations, you know?”

“Well, you’re an idiot, but at least you’re a self-aware idiot,” Rocket sighed. “ _Anyway.”_

“Gamora still hates me,” Peter informed him. “Believe me, I wish, but that isn’t happening, like, anytime soon, if ever.”

“Yeah, and ya think I didn’t know that?” Rocket scoffed. “I’m not saying you should ask _her,_ she’d probably slap you. But you _could_ ask one of her friends. Lotsa girls go to these things in groups, right? So, like, if you’ve got a date with one of her friends, you go with her without ever having to deal with the whole ‘she hates your guts’ thing. You get me?”

“I mean, yeah, but…” customarily, he scratched the back of his neck. “All the people she hangs out with are, like, _smart._ And smart people usually hate me.”

“That Mantis girl seems like she doesn’t hate you,” he suggested. “Huge nerd, so that’s a pretty safe bet, right?”

If Peter had been drinking anything, he would have spit it out.

 _“_ Let me get this straight, you want me to ask _Mantis_ to winter formal?!?” He asked incredulously. “I mean, she’s okay and all, but she _barely talks_ , she might possibly want me to date Gamora more than _I_ want me to date Gamora, and I think she’s at least somewhat terrified of human interaction…and besides, just because she’s a nerd doesn’t mean that she and Gamora are friends.”

“I mean, Nebula told me to tell you this, so I’m pretty sure-“

Peter pressed his hand to his forehead, shaking his head in irritation. “You’re working with Nebula now?”

“Uh, no comment,” Rocket replied, jamming his hands into his front pockets. “Yeah…um. Pleading the fifth on that.”

“She’s probably trying to get me to leave Gamora alone,” Peter sighed, and both trailed off. He could not have been more relieved than he was when the bell rang after a few seconds of incredibly awkward silence.

“Hey, you never know!” Rocket called after him as they split up for their first-period classes.

“I think I actually might,” Peter countered.

He did, he was quite sure; unless, of course, he didn’t.

————————————————————————————-

 

An impending physics test meant another session with Gamora that afternoon, and Peter thought that today it might, for once, prove advantageous. Especially considering the relative mildness of the anger on her face when she saw him walk up to her table.

“So your sister is apparently trying to set me up with Mantis,” he sighed, dropping his physics textbook on the table.

Gamora sighed, face reddening ever so slightly. “Yeah, I heard about that. No idea why, sorry.” She shot a _don’t worry about it_ look to Mantis, who’d heard her name and glanced over.

“Oh really,” he questioned, “because it doesn’t sound like that to me.”

“Nebula probably just feels bad for her,” Gamora reasoned with a “don’t look at me, I’m innocent” shrug. “She’s had a tough time adjusting to this and she seems to have taken a liking to you. I mean, she thinks you’re nice or whatever, not _that_ kind.”

“Adjusting to what?”

“Being in a regular school like this,” she explained. “Mantis is only a sophomore, and until last year, she’d been homeschooled since she was six-“

“Wait, hold up,” Peter interrupted. “My essay game just got owned by a _sophomore?!?”_

Gamora rolled her eyes, lowering her voice to stave off Mantis’ attempts at eavesdropping. “She’s smarter than you give her credit for.”

“Well, duh, but still,” he pouted.

“She didn’t have many chances for social interaction as a kid, and reading was her only means of contact with the outside world for most of her life. That’s why she’s kind of afraid of people, even though she understands them better than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“So your sister wanted to set us up because she’s desperate…?” Peter asked.

Gamora sighed heavily. “Not the politest way to put it, but yes, essentially.”

“Huh. Probably not going to happen, but thanks for the deep analysis of her psyche.”

“I’ve asked you once and I’ll ask you again: _how_ are you academically ineligible if you regularly use words like ‘psyche’?” Gamora inquired. “And don’t you have a physics test to study for?”

“…yeah,” he admitted, opening his notebook to a fresh page. “So how exactly am I supposed to find initial velocity?”

Watching her friend attempt to explain acceleration to her intriguing new acquaintance, Mantis thought about the things she hadn’t been meant to overhear. It was certainly true that she’d been closed off from the world for much of her life; she knew that was why people, as terrifying as they were, drew and fascinated her so. But she hadn’t realized that she was an object of pity in her beloved mentor’s eyes. Gamora, who had taught her so much about the world she’d been thrown into (like how and where to punch, but also what to do in awkward situations, and how to make sure you never had to eat lunch alone) – she thought she was desperate?

It wasn’t in any way false, but it still stung. But Drax and his disaster of a “short story” (more of a series of improbable coincidences strung together and masquerading as a plot) for English class demanded her complete attention, and mercifully she couldn’t dwell on that when her pupil’s embarrassingly incorrect grammar called for fixing. And she had only to go to work on a paper in dire need of proofreading and she would feel like herself again. The role of the precocious underclassman singlehandedly responsible for saving seniors’ passing English grades was her most comfortable; she knew the English language as intimately as she did the emotions it could only begin to convey. It was a way to be useful in a life where she’d always been tossed aside.

Mantis liked to think, in a way, it was the same for Gamora, who’d only ever known pressure to succeed, and a life where selfishness was the only way. She wanted to do something to better the world, even something small, in return for all those years of believing that her own performance was all that mattered. It was why she dealt with Peter – a pupil she frequently described as a “capital-I idiot” – even though she’d rather dunk her head in A1 Steak Sauce repeatedly than speak to him. She’d stick with it in spite of his irritating personality because she’d gone too long refusing to give up on her own success to give up on anyone else’s. And in sticking with it –

Mantis knew she’d come around. She had to. Because, as basic logical reasoning and her excellent character-judgement skills made clear, he was a soft human being, and no one could resist one of those for long.

 _Even,_ Mantis thought, gazing wistfully in their direction as Gamora leaned over a textbook while Peter looked on, hanging on her every word,  _if she doesn’t want to admit that maybe she doesn't hate his guts._

“I thought you said you were going to improve my story,” Drax hinted, snapping her out of her trance.

“Here. Hold on.” She handed back his laptop and pulled a small pink Moleskine out of her bag.

Some things demanded writing down. And this, she had a feeling, was one of them. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Mantis isn't exactly super relevant to the main plot of this, but I had a lot of thoughts about the direction I wanted her character in this to take (she is a space homeschooler and no one can convince me otherwise) and felt like throwing them at y'all. Plus, the "nightly update" thing means I've got to come up with *a lot* of content in a short amount of time, so things like this (i.e. harping on semi-irrelevant character development for an entire chapter) tend to happen. It also makes for slightly unrealistic lapses in judgement on my part, like the suggestion that a very popular senior take a random sophomore to a dance being taken semi-seriously by said senior. Lots of details like that end up being super off, sorry. And I obviously, tangentially got way too excited about Mantis’ backstory in this chapter. Oops. 
> 
> Or: Gamora is like an older sister to Mantis in this AU and is totally NOT trying to get her a date with this guy she wants to get rid of, because that would be weird. Nope, she was DEFINITELY not involved. ;) 
> 
> ...Did any of that make sense? Nah. Do I abuse my parenthesis privileges? Absolutely. But whatever! :)


	5. the scariest part is letting go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gamora makes a promise she might regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to the story-relevant, tooth-rotting fluff ;)  
> (Title from "The Words" by Christina Perri.)

“So, let me get this straight. You’re eligible again, but you _still_ wanna spend every single afternoon at tutoring?” Rocket shook his head, sincerely disappointed. “You’ve got it worse than I thought.”

“Yes and no,” Peter vaguely defended himself. “I mean, yeah, she won’t talk to me any other way, but I’ve realized something, too.”

“This oughta be good,” Rocket snickered. “What, do ya suddenly feel called to be a brain surgeon or something?”

Peter fixed him with a nonplussed gaze. “Why would I want to do _that?_ I can’t even get a shot without losing it.”

Rocket rolled his eyes. “I mean do you think your future depends on your grades all the sudden? Little late for that.”

“No, but now that I’ve realized I _can_ do better, it should start aiming higher-“ he started to explain.

“…because Gamora only dates guys who care about school,” Nebula finished for him, walking up with her usual inopportune timing.

“Dude! How and why are you always sneaking up on me?” Peter shuddered. “It’s _creepy!”_

Nebula shrugged. “I pride myself on my timing.”

“Oh, so _this_ is what that’s about,” Rocket cackled. “You’re hilarious. You fall for the smartest girl in your class and all the sudden you decide you’re going to be on the honor roll or something?”

“Rocket…”

“Fine, okay, but if you have any idea what’s good for you, don’t let Gamora find out that you’re not ineligible anymore,” he warned.

“Yeah, second the motion,” Nebula concurred. “She’ll catch on eventually, but for now, lips sealed. I won’t tell her anything.”

Peter gaped at her, unable to believe his own ears. “Did you just say something borderline _nice_ to me?”

“No, I’m being pragmatic,” she replied, sauntering off before he had a chance to ask her what exactly she meant by that. 

_Note to self: look up “pragmatic.”_

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With a perfunctory wave to Mantis, who always seemed unexpectedly happy to see him walk into the library, Peter made his way to Gamora with unusual confidence.

“You seem to be in a good mood,” she remarked. “Any… _news_ for me?”

“Yeah!” He nodded excitedly, gulping back his fear of the knowing smirk on Gamora’s face. “I got a B+ on that physics test.”

She smiled slightly. “Glad to know you’ve learned _something_ from me.”

“Brought my grade up from a 72 to a 78. Not bad, huh?”

“It’s a start,” she agreed. “Now how about that math quiz?”

“Well, that’s _one_ way to kill my good mood,” Peter sighed. “Let’s just say I am, heh, not really kicking asymptote right now.”

Gamora pinched the bridge of her nose, leaning against her hand in exasperation. “Please tell me you did not just make a math pun…”

Peter grinned cheekily. “Sorry, was that awful? It was too good an opportunity to pass up.”

“Yeah, uh...no offense, but that was one of the more cringe-worthy things you’ve said.”

“Woooow,” Peter drawled. “So kind of you to spare my feelings!”

“Oh, shut up,” Gamora muttered, cheeks ever so slightly reddened. “Anyway. I take it you need help with asymptotes?”

“Yeah, the hyperbola thing. I don’t have any idea how to find them.”

Composure effectively regained, Gamora nodded. “Okay, do you have any practice questions to work on?”

“Yeah, let me get them out.” Leaning sideways to grab his computer from his bag, Peter caught Mantis’ eye – she looked utterly elated, smiling in a normal, non-pained way for once. She turned to shush Drax, whose story was going through a third round of revisions, before he could ruin her moment with an obnoxiously forward comment. Peter couldn’t help but grin back; her enthusiasm was amusingly endearing.

“Hold on, let me look something up. Haven’t done this in a while,” Gamora explained.

“Wait, they don’t have these in calculus?” Peter asked incredulously. “Lucky…”

“Lucky? Because I have to learn about the chain rule instead of _this?”_ Gamora scoffed. “Hardly.”

“The…chain rule?” He asked. “That sounds like a medieval torture device.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty accurate,” Gamora sighed.

“I would argue that conic sections suck more,” Peter contested.

“Never in a million years, and I’ll prove it.” Gamora typed in a search term and promptly turned her laptop around to show him a complex web fractions and radicals that made Peter’s head spin.

“…okay, first of all, why, and second, okay, fine, you win.”

“Anyway, that’s not relevant. Back to the quiz-“

“It’s going to take a small miracle for me to pass this, so good luck,” Peter sighed.

“You seemed to understand this stuff last time we worked on it,” Gamora offered. “You’ve got to get some of it, don’t you?”

“Only certain things. Not this.”

Watching the pathetic human being across the table from her stare blankly at his paper, trying to decipher the language of numbers in front of him, Gamora had an idea she was certain she’d regret later on but couldn’t seem to stop herself from entertaining.

“Hey, Peter?” She asked, her voice almost timid.

He looked up with a look in his eyes that warmed and terrified Gamora to the core. “Yeah?”

“Uh, I’ll make you a…deal,” she offered.

Peter raised his eyebrows. “What kind of a deal?”

“Um.” She toyed with the hem of her sweater. “If you get an A on this quiz, I’ll, um…”

“Yeees?” he asked with a ‘please-continue’ grin.

“I’ll get coffee or something with you over winter break,” she mumbled.

His face broke out into the most elated grin she had ever seen and it was only then, despite the carefully-concealed warmth in her cheeks, that she thought to remind him, “not as a date!”

“Oh, yeah, totally. Not a date. That’s cool. Just…friends. Because we are? Friends, I mean? Right?”

Gamora shook her head, wondering what had possessed her to do that, but she couldn’t help but say, “yeah, sure.”

“Take this. Need it to plan. You know, just in case,” Peter replied, playing down the mile-a-minute heartbeat and sweating palms he thought he’d become immune to years ago as he wrote out and passed her a small slip of paper containing nothing but a sequence of seven numbers.

 _What did I just get myself into?_ Gamora asked herself, and she had to admit that she wasn’t sure. But one look at Mantis, looking like she was about to burst an artery out of sheer excitement, proved that whatever it was, she’d just broken her last defensive wall against the outcome she’d feared from the start.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the last chapter, which I felt was kind of awful, I’m glad I was sort of able to get this back on track here. Creds to one of my awesome (IRL) friends for the idea of Gamora’s hangout deal :)


	6. give you my heart to break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gamora decides that it's time they finally talked about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This moves way too fast. Oh well. What is pacing? ;) 
> 
> Title is from "Give You My Heart To Break" by Kim Petras.

Gamora let out a sigh and stepped into the linoleum aisle of the bus before she could convince herself not to. The school had lined up a bus to take students a few counties north for the state football championships, and though she’d initially decided against going, something told her she didn’t want to miss this. And so she claimed one of the only vacant seats remaining without much scrutiny and went along with the masses of adolescents already onboard to the event of the semester.

That was a decision she immediately regretted upon turning to grab the seatbelt and nearly crashing into Drax, already sleeping – no, _hibernating,_ that was how passed out he seemed to be. She grimaced ( _great, now I’m stuck)_ but figured that the best way to avoid her eccentric pupil was likely to ride out the storm in total silence and cross her fingers he wouldn’t wake up. But apparently, fate – or, rather, Mantis – had other plans.

“Gamora?” An unmistakable voice piped up from a few rows back on the opposite side.

Gamora tried not to sigh and replied, “that you, Mantis?”

“I cannot believe you came!” She called back. “I thought you said you weren’t coming. What changed your mind?”

“Guess I just felt like it. I mean, the school went to the trouble to get us a bus for this, so I might as well take advantage of that.”

“Do you think we’ll win?” Mantis asked.

“I mean, we’d probably have better odds if Quill hadn’t gone and gotten himself ineligible, but-“ 

Mantis peered out from behind her seat, a nonplussed expression on her open-book face. “Peter isn’t academically ineligible anymore,” she said. “Didn’t he tell you?”

Gamora nearly choked on the air she was inhaling. “He’s _what?!?”_

“Eligible again,” Mantis repeated. “But he still comes to tutoring because apparently he’s decided he wants to start ‘aiming higher,’ he told me.”

Gamora’s face felt ten degrees hotter than the rest of her body, and she wasn’t sure if it was from anger (that he hadn’t told her), confusion (as to why it mattered), or something far worse. “He’s doing this for me,” she whispered, hollow, almost incredulous. Mantis nodded, hearing everything as alway.

“He always has been,” Mantis said softly. “Even when he needed to come. He could have cheated, or asked someone else for help, but he came to us. And he didn’t stop.”

“This was so much easier a week ago,” Gamora mumbled, playing with the zipper of her bag.

“But now it’s better,” Mantis offered.

“I think we have very different definitions of the word ‘better.’”

“I think it’s time for you to acknowledge it, Gamora,” Mantis pleaded. “Peter loves you. He’s loved you all along and he isn’t going to stop loving you. But if you truly don’t think you can love him back, then you need to tell him. He wants to make you happy. He’ll let you be if he knows that he is causing you pain.”

“You certainly do know a lot about a guy you’ve known for two weeks,” Gamora snapped, uncomfortable in the face of Mantis’ blunt wisdom. The understanding and insight she possessed at only fifteen, and with so little experience at that, would never cease to amaze Gamora, but their current application was a decidedly uncomfortable one. “…sorry, I didn’t mean to snap like that,” she apologized. “I guess I do need to talk to him.”

But that was easier said than done.

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Your hands are shaking.”

Gamora, staring at her hands the entire game (it wasn’t as if she understood football anyway – she’d never really cared for televised sports and didn’t attend the school games), looked up abruptly to see her bus partner staring down at her quizzically.

“Huh?” She snapped out of her nervous trance. “Sorry, what?”

“I said, ‘your hands are shaking,’” Drax repeated. “I understand. This is truly a stressful match.”

Gamora restrained an immediate urge to roll her eyes. “No, it isn’t that,” she sighed.

“Then what is wrong with you? I have never seen you nervous before,” he asked, somewhat amazed.

“Personal problem,” she answered, staring at her shoes.

“Would you like to discuss this problem? I have been told that I am an excellent advisor,” Drax offered.

 _Who has he advised?_ Gamora wondered, pitying whoever had taken his advice. “Thanks, but I’ll be all right. I just need to talk to someone, that’s all.” She pulled out her phone and began typing, hoping that would warn him off.

Drax’s expression shifted from concern to confusion. “Why are you texting Quill?” He asked, drawing the eyes of everyone sitting around them.

“ _Drax!”_ She snapped. “Personal! Problem!”

“Right. Sorry. I think I will go get some Skittles-“

Gamora tuned out whatever he was about to say and steeled herself to type the simple message that’d had her nerves in knots since the bus ride.

_Hey, can I talk to you after the game?_

_\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

It was a narrow loss, the kind that just as easily could have been a win. No one on Elk Creek’s side of the stands looked anything less than despondent. It was nearly enough to make Gamora rethink what she was about to do.

But she wouldn’t – couldn’t – back off now. She’d already taken the first step. It had to be done. So when Peter met her by the deserted vending machines outside the student section, she did not run. She didn’t make an excuse. She couldn’t put it off anymore.

“Peter, I, uh…” she started shakily.

“…yeah?” He asked, sweaty, nervous, still in uniform. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier-“

Gamora shook her head, afraid to meet his eyes. “No, it isn’t that. It’s just that I, uh-“

“You’re stuttering. You never stutter,” he remarked, amazed. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, of course, I just need to clear something up with you.”

“Oh. Of course.” His face fell, as if he knew what was coming. She doubted he really did.

“Look. I think it’s sweet that you care so much about me, and I support your efforts to do better in school and all, but I’m not sure if I exactly…share your goals for…our friendship,” she began.

Peter looked even more downcast. “I understand,” he said, desperately trying to conceal his cracking voice.

“No, Peter…” before Gamora knew what she was doing, she took his hands. “I’m not saying no.”

His expression wavered, vacillating between hope and despair. “Then…”

“I’m not sure, but right now, all I can give you is ‘it’s complicated.’”

“Complicated. I’ll take complicated!” And she had to smile, seeing how elated he was even at a ‘maybe.’

“So…if you want to keep coming to tutoring…” Gamora finished – “I think I’d like that.”

Peter grinned. “I would too.”

And for the first time in her life, Gamora saw what everyone else seemed to see in this fool’s game of falling in love.


	7. opened my doors and made room for one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A first date, not that Gamora would ever allow it to be called that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could say that this was the highly-anticipated chapter in which Gamora honors her promise to go out to lunch with Peter if he gets an A on that math quiz, but I'm pretty sure only about three people ever read this, so it's just the "not-first-date chapter." That still works, though ;) 
> 
> Also, exposition. 
> 
> Title is from "I'm Yours" by Alessia Cara.

Peter adjusted the hem of the only button-up he owned for at least the eighteenth time in five minutes, tapping his foot and scanning yet another list of first date tips he’d found online. He wondered, for a brief moment, why he’d had to get an A on that math quiz, compelling Gamora to honor her end of the bargain. But he didn’t regret it, he decided. This would be worth it.

 _It’s not a date,_ he reminded himself, but no amount of reminders could convince him that this not-date with Gamora held any less importance than a real one. He crossed his fingers that his heartbeat wasn’t audible (it felt like it should be) and took a seat at one of the window tables, figuring that it’d be easier to take the nerves sitting down. Too nervous to be alone with his thoughts, he opened another link to first date advice and flicked through it.

“Peter?” A voice snapped him out of his reverie.

“Oh, hey!” Peter replied, tense but (hopefully) welcoming, and turned abruptly.

“You all right?” Gamora asked, taking the seat opposite his. “You seem tense.”

“Me? Tense? Nah,” Peter declaimed, trying not to stare. “Little nervous, that’s all.”

“If you say so,” Gamora sighed in false exasperation. His complete openness was dangerously endearing. “Not a date, remember?”

“Yeah, ‘course.” He fiddled with the cup of water he’d gotten to keep himself occupied before she arrived. “So…how’s life?”

“Stressful, as always.” Gamora turned a sugar packet in her hands, staring at the table with a touch of color in her cheeks. “College applications just wrapped up. Tough couple months.”

“Oh yeah, where’d you apply?” Peter asked.

“Virtually all of the Ivies, only because my father essentially forced me to, and Caltech, which was my personal first choice. And a couple of fall-back schools in case none of those work out. You know, the schools every parent wants to be able to say that their kid got into,” Gamora answered wearily.

“Sick of being asked about this?” Peter guessed. A waitress handed the pair the lattes ( _always chai tea,_ he remembered) that Peter had ordered beforehand and both gratefully accepted the excuse to break up the awkwardness.

“Incredibly,” she groaned. “You have no idea.”

“Guess I don’t. Committed for football last year,” Peter explained.

“Oh, really?” Gamora sipped her latte thoughtfully. “Where to?”

“Uh, is it bad that I don’t even remember? Somewhere in Mississipi or something?”

Gamora couldn’t help but snicker. “You don’t even remember the name of the college you’re going to?!?”

“Uh…I remembered what state it was in!” He offered lamely.

“Would you like a gold star for that?”

Peter almost choked on his coffee. “Did you just use sarcasm correctly?” He asked, wide-eyed. “I am _so proud of you!”_

“Seriously, Quill?” Gamora huffed, fully aware that he could tell how red her face was and hating every second of it.

_Stupid subconscious reactions._

“So, anyway,” Peter continued, “why’d your dad make you apply to all the Ivy Leagues? Do you even want to go to any of them?”

“It’s a long story,” she sighed, hiding behind another sip of her latte.

“Have you seen how slow the service is at this place?” Peter asked, glancing around the restaurant at the tables full of people who had been there longer and still had yet to be served. “We’ve got time.”

“Fine,” she sighed. “First thing you should know is that I’m adopted.”

“Think I knew that,” Peter responded. “You and Nebula look nothing alike. Kinda figured it out.”

“Yeah, we both are. We were basically a PR stunt,” Gamora explained.

“What do you mean?”

“Our father is the CEO of a company that manufactures pesticides. Most of the manufacturing is outsourced to India because it’s cheaper, and not all of it is exactly…ethical,” she began.

“So what’d he do? You’re not from India, are you?” Peter asked.

“No, neither of us are. But anyways. When I was about three, before we were adopted, people in a town near one of the manufacturing plants started dying mysteriously of something, I can’t remember what, caused by water contamination. That was how they found out that his company was disposing of the toxic manufacturing waste unsafely. So, obviously, when that got out, it was a huge scandal, and he needed a way to repair his public image." Gamora took a breath and paused before continuing. "I guess he thought adopting children from third-world countries would make him look good.”

“So he adopted you and Nebula to save face?” Peter asked. “Well,  _that’s_ not at all messed-up…”

“The worst part was that, because we were just a publicity stunt, he decided who we were going to be – the part we played in this whole masquerade – when we were too young to know any better, and that was what we were stuck doing for the rest of our lives. He decided I was going to be the smart one, so he made me do…all of this.”

“Wow,” Peter responded. “Not much to say to that. Sorry your dad sucks so much.”

“If you ever need someone to use as a punching bag, you know who to call,” Gamora almost joked, trying too hard to lighten the mood.

“Gladly.” Peter smiled reassuringly. “If you ever want me to do that, I’d be honored.”

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Once their meals arrived, Peter and Gamora settled into a comfortable but thick silence. Both were content with their thoughts and occasional looks for the time being; Peter tried not to stare, Gamora fought the urge to run.

 _What were you thinking?!?_ She asked herself. _Why would you tell him that?_

 _I had no idea,_ was all Peter could think. _That’s just…well, it sucks._

Peter wanted to wrap her in his embrace until the past fifteen years melted away. Gamora wanted to run from this boy who’d made her want to bare her soul for the first time in as long as she could remember. Both hid their desires behind hot, comforting soup and sandwiches practically as long as their forearms. They were silent, but not unhappy to be. Conversation didn’t need to flow anymore; it was better this way, so that they could process all they’d said.

 _I’m getting too close,_ she warned herself.

 _I wish I had something better to say to her,_ Peter lamented.

Both noted the other’s well-groomed appearance at least twice. Both asked the same question of themselves over and over. Both wanted something they could never speak of. Both wondered about the elephant in the room – the confession at State that they seemed to be mutually ignoring.

But still, they were silent.

And that was how they stayed, until plates had been cleaned and the bill paid and the two had awkwardly hugged before splitting off.

Only then could they wonder what it all meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So obviously, I reimagined Thanos as a money-grubbing CEO here. I figured that was the best way to explain why he'd adopted Gamora and Nebula (scandal, PR stunt, etc.). I thought that was kind of important to include here because character motivations, so this was very exposition-y. Oops. I mean, it had to happen eventually?


	8. it was just like a movie (it was just like a song)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gamora's probably going to regret this decision. 
> 
> (Title is from "When We Were Young" by Adele.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early one today because I have stuff going on later. I have no idea what's going on with this story, but I do have a bit more of an idea than I did before, as evidenced by the final chapter count I just added. So this will from now on follow a coherent plot. Yay...?

“You know how many other, far less boring parties I turned down to come to this thing?” Rocket griped, staring at the ornate interior of the home they’d just walked into with a contradictory glint in his eye.

“Yeah, and if you steal anything, I’m going to stab you,” Peter warned his plus-one. “You know how big a deal it is that I got invited to this thing?”

“Oh, _sure,”_ Rocket replied cheekily. “New Year’s midnight kiss, anyone?”

“Yeah, in his _dreams,”_ Nebula cut in. “Thanks for coming. I hate being entertainment for my dad’s stupid corporate friends.”

“Nice place you got,” Peter remarked. “Where’s Gamora?”

“Kitchen, maybe? Follow me,” Nebula beckoned, less irritated by their presence than they’d ever seen her. The interior of the home looked like the lobby of a ritzy hotel at Christmastime, with ornate garland on every stairwell and a massive fir in the living room without a single strand of tinsel out of place. Middle-aged men in tuxedoes milled around in every conceivable corner. Rocket gaped, no doubt staking out every priceless knickknack he could possibly slip out in his back pockets at the end of the night. Nebula lead the pair into a kitchen that looked like the set of a cooking show, where a few of Gamora’s friends were clustered around a table of hors d’eourves.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Nebula announced. Every head in the place turned – Peter recognized a couple of the six-AP-class crowd and, in a back corner, not speaking to anyone, Mantis – and Gamora left the group to meet them.

“Glad you could make it,” she greeted them.

Rocket elbowed Peter’s side. “You’re staring,” he whispered. The group around the table laughed discreetly.

“ _Dude!”_

He most definitely _was s_ taring – Gamora wore an _extremely_ flattering red cocktail dress that Peter was fairly certain her father had made her wear – but a bit more subtlety on his plus-one’s part would have been appreciated.

“Uh.” Gamora crossed her arms, staring at her feet again. “Want some food?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Rocket cackled, promptly colonizing an entire side of the table and depositing multiple handfuls of some sort of fancy crackers half a container of hummus on his plate. “Oh, hey, aren’t you the kid who got a 30 on the last calc exam?” He asked a flustered boy across the table from him, one of the one’s who’d been the most amused by Rocket’s ‘staring’ comment.

“I apologize in advance for anything he says, steals, or gets into a fight with in the next three hours,” Peter sighed. He’d forgotten that Rocket shared many of Gamora and her friends’ classes; he probably knew everyone here and didn’t like most of them. That was not a good sign.

“Hey, watching him catch that kid’s hands is more fun than entertaining my father’s friends any day,” Gamora reassured him. “I don’t even really like Michael. It would be amusing.”

“Why’d you invite him, then?” Peter asked.

“I didn’t. His girlfriend did.”

“Who is…?” Peter prompted.

“Blond one, on the left at the end of the table. Cass. She’s perfectly normal. None of us are really sure how she got herself stuck with him,” Gamora explained.

“So why did you invite all these people again?” he asked.

“Because I’m always bored out of my mind at these things, remember? I told you all of this.”

“Oh, right.” Peter paused for only a second before realizing he had an even more pressing question: “is there gonna be cheesecake?”

Gamora rolled her eyes fondly. “Maaaaybe,” she teased, walking off to join her friends at the table.

Peter couldn’t help but gape like a fish.

_This isn’t a dream? Hard to believe._

_\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

“Remind you why you made yourself sick?” Rocket asked, shaking his head suspiciously.

“It was a good cheesecake,” Peter explained. “A really good cheesecake.”

“And how many slices of said ‘really good cheesecake’ did you eat, if I may?” he inquired.

“…five,” Peter admitted, looking every bit like a guilty kindergartner caught eating candy before dinner.

“Typical,” Nebula, sitting beside them, sighed, rolling her eyes. “But you can’t be as sick as I am, watching _that.”_

The two followed her eyes to the center of the living room, where, among the couples dancing to a mellow love song, Cass and Michael were publicly and obviously clinging to each other.

“Disgusting,” Rocket agreed. “No, Peter, don’t even think about-“

It was far too late for that. Peter had already started making his way towards Gamora. 

“He loves dancing like nothing else,” Rocket explained.

“So he’s going to…”

“Yup.” Rocket grinned deviously. “You might wanna watch this.”

The two swiveled their eyes towards the opposite side of the room.

“No.”

“Come _on!”_ Peter begged. “What, do you not like dancing or something?”

“As a matter of fact, I hate it,” Gamora informed him, “so _no.”_

“That’s only because you’ve never had a good partner before,” Peter insisted. “ _Please?!?”_

“You know what, whatever,” Gamora huffed, taking Peter’s arm. “For the record, this is a terrible idea.”

“Extremely,” Peter agreed solemnly.

“Notice what time it is,” Rocket suggested, gesturing in the direction of a large wall clock.

“Eleven fifty-seven? So it’s almost the new year. And this is important why?” Nebula asked.

“Watch,” Rocket instructed.

“Your friend must be very persuasive,” Nebula noted. “Gamora hates dancing.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure she’s got it worse than she lets on,” Rocket agreed.

Nebula watched her sister relax as the song progressed, her hands no longer shaking where they rested against Peter’s waist. She almost looked content, for the first time she had in years. And she was lighter on her feet than Nebula would have expected. She glanced back at the clock – eleven fifty-nine – and wondered what it was Rocket had told her to watch for.

“Hey, Peter?” Gamora asked, voice soft and almost sweet and entirely disarming.

“Y-yeah?” Peter replied, heart beating a million miles an hour for a reason he knew but couldn’t entirely place.

“It’s midnight,” Gamora answered.

“Oh, it is?” Peter smiled. “Happy New Year, then.”

“You are the best at missing the point,” Gamora sighed.

“Wait, wha-“ He couldn't finish. 

Gamora’s lips crashed into his, and he nearly fell backwards in shock before he regained enough composure to kiss her back until she pulled away, blushing madly.

“’Course. I forgot about that, uh, tradition.” Peter’s mind raced with a million indescribable emotions, shock and terror and elation blending into something that felt like floating and he _finally_ understood what people meant when they said they’d felt sparks and all he wanted was –

Gamora dropped her arms to her sides, stood in shock for a second, and shoved her way off the dance floor and ran, ran as fast as she could to any place she could be alone.

Peter watched, too shellshocked to call out, and wondered if this was what if felt like to be swallowed by the ground below one’s feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am terrible at writing kisses. But I hope you enjoyed the *relationship development*, haha. Dedicated to @sharkinterviewee, who “just wants them to start kissing already.” 
> 
> Also, for international readers, I’m not sure if this is only done in the U.S. or not, but if it is, it’s a tradition where I live to kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve. If it isn’t, and everyone does this, that was probably obvious, haha. I didn’t really explain that, so I figured I should.
> 
> One last note: my tumblr is @ephemeralcontinuums and I’m lonely :(. Come say hi!


	9. i know it's not the truth when you say "i'm fine"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nebula's never imagined herself as much of a comforting type, but these aren't ordinary circumstances.
> 
> (Title is from "Break My Heart Again" by FINNEAS.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANGST!  
> That is all. ;)  
> (Oh, also, I'm terrible at writing angst. Sorry 'bout that.)

“You can’t just sit in there and be angsty forever,” Nebula called, still receiving no response from the other side of the door. That was enough. She pulled at the doorknob.

_Really? She locked it?_

“You’re aware that I know how to pick a lock, right?” she tested.

“Do it, you won’t,” Gamora challenged without much conviction.

“So you _can_ still talk,” Nebula huffed. “Do you wanna unlock it or do you want me to pick the lock with a hairpin? Your choice.”

Silence.

“All right, hairpin it is,” she announced, walking a few feet down the hall to the nearest bathroom and fishing a pin out of the drawer she knew her sister used for hair supplies.

“You’re actually picking it, aren’t you,” Gamora groaned, hearing the telltale sound of her door’s lock turning.

“Surprise,” Nebula replied, shoving the door open. “What are-“she stopped short.

Gamora was lying in the middle of her bed surrounded by tissues that hadn’t made it into her overflowing wastebasket. An empty ice cream container sat overturned next to the wastebasket, a metal spoon poking out from beneath. And her eyes were redder than Nebula had ever seen them.

“…all of this because you kissed a guy?” Nebula wondered aloud, amazed.

“I am going to disembowel you with a pencil if you take one more step into my room,” she snarled.

“Why are you so upset about this? You’re the one who kissed him,” Nebula pointed out. She tried not to show her worry; she’d rarely seen her sister cry, and when she had, it had never been for such a seemingly trivial reason. This wasn’t just about that kiss, she could tell.

“Hey, what’s _really_ wrong?” Nebula asked, parking herself in the grey velvet armchair next to Gamora’s bed.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Gamora mumbled, turning so she wouldn’t have to face her sister.

“I’m not going to tell dad. You know I wouldn’t,” Nebula coaxed.

“It isn’t about him. For all I can tell, it’s not about anything. I don’t even know what it _is_ about.”   

“Anyone can see that Peter’s attraction to you is mutual,” Nebula reminded her. “It’s not like it’s exactly a secret anymore.”

“I’m not _that_ obvious!” Gamora protested.

Nebula very much would have liked to gloat over coercing her sister into confessing her feelings, but she deemed it unwise at the moment.

“You sorta are,” Nebula informed her. “You have so little experience being attracted to people that you have no idea how to hide it when you are.”

That was one of the strangest things about her sister; under nearly all circumstances Gamora could keep everything in a perfectly-corked glass bottle without even a single fracture, but in cases like this one, she didn’t know how to hide.

“Yeah, well, I have no idea what I’m doing anymore, so that’s useless information,” Gamora sighed.

“’Anymore? Because you knew what you were doing at one point…?”

“The day he walked in for tutoring the first time, my stomach just dropped. Like I was on a roller coaster or something, like it was going to be bad and I knew it. I wanted to run. Instead I threatened to stab him,” Gamora mumbled, playing with a stray tissue to keep her hands busy.

“Yeah, I heard about that. If you ask me, you were trying too hard to convince yourself you couldn’t stand him,” Nebula conjectured.

“I _couldn’t,_ at first. Then he brought me a latte.” Gamora couldn’t help but let a tiny smile slip through her frustrated façade.

“Yeah, that one was my fault,” Nebula admitted.

“You… _what?!?”_ Gamora sat up abruptly. “You were _setting me up!?!”_

“I mean, you tried to set him up with Mantis, so…” Nebula shrugged. “I knew he was good for you.”

“You could not _possibly_ know what was good for me,” Gamora spat, clutching her bedspread so feverishly that her knuckles looked white.

“You know I was right,” Nebula countered, unfazed.

“And then I was an idiot and I offered him a date – I mean, not a date, just lunch, that was all it was-“ she looked around defensively, as if someone were listening to her every word – “to make him study, and then I made the mistake of telling him I didn’t hate him, and then I told him everything on that not-date, and then I invite him to that stupid party, and then I had to go and kiss him, and…” she trailed off, shaking with the exertion of letting out the tears she hadn’t shed in so long. 

“Hey, I’m not exactly the romantic type, but it might not be the worst thing ever that you like someone,” Nebula consoled, awkwardly patting Gamora’s trembling shoulder.

“What was I doing?” she said softly, her shoulders shaking with every silent sob.

“What you thought was best,” Nebula replied.

“It’s been so long since I opened up to anyone and I tell this guy my entire life story two weeks after we start speaking to each other,” Gamora sighed. “ _Why?”_

“I don’t know, ‘Mora. And neither do you. All you seem to know right now is that Peter means more to you than you’re willing to admit.” Nebula sighed shakily, wondering where this disgustingly sappy soliloquy was coming from but not exactly sure she wanted it to stop. “And I’m not sure why you’re running from the best thing that’s happened to you in years, but mark my words, it’s not going to last. People like him find their way back to you every time.”

“I just don’t know,” Gamora sobbed. “ _I just don’t know.”_

“And sometimes that’s okay.”

Nebula wrapped her arms awkwardly around her sister and closed her eyes, wishing she could understand what this all meant. Even a glimpse of an explanation would be better than this.

“Thanks,” Gamora rasped.

“Any time. And if anyone hears about this…”

“You’ll disembowel me with a pencil?” Gamora guessed, almost smiling.

Nebula nodded. “You know it.”

“Same goes for you,” Gamora called as she opened the door.

Nebula nodded and pulled her phone from her pocket as soon as she was out of earshot. She had an important call to make.

“Rocket? I need your help,” she started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is short and almost entirely dialogue. Brace yourselves, because the next chapter is also going to be very short and almost entirely dialogue. Oops. 
> 
> Also, Nebula is super OOC here in regards to the canon, but I think that if Gamora and Nebula had been raised in a way that didn't force them to compete against each other, they would be much closer, and this might be somewhat more plausible. Since they obviously aren't being forced to fight each other in this AU, I thought I could get away with it.


	10. once upon a time I was falling in love (now I'm only falling apart)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter is a drama queen, Rocket is annoyed, and I finally get around to mentioning the iconic Quill family playlist.
> 
> (Title is from "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MORE ANGST! ;)

“H-how did you get in here?” Peter yelped, throwing the ancient iPod Shuffle in his hands to the bedspread.

“Back door was unlocked, as always,” Rocket explained. His eyes fell on the iPod and he instinctively rolled his eyes.

“You’re listening to your mom’s playlist on repeat again, aren’t you,” he sighed.

“How many times have you been through every song on that thing?” Rocket inquired.

“…three times,” Peter admitted. “What’d you expect?”

“Honestly? I don’t know,” Rocket shrugged. “I don’t exactly remember the last time the girl of your dreams kissed you in public and ran off.”

“I should never have kissed her back,” Peter lamented, pressing his hand to his forehead.

“Nope, you should totally have stood there like a lump while the girl you’d been in love with for three years was trying to kiss you,” Rocket snapped. “You did fine!”

“Then why’d she run?” Peter asked.

“She’s terrified. Nebula told me everything.”

“Hearing you mention her in a sentence without a vague threat and every curse word known to man will never not be weird,” Peter remarked.

“Yeah, well, we have…a common interest,” Rocket responded, shifting uncomfortably.

“What’d she say?” Peter asked, almost timid.

“She’s scared of opening up like that and the fact that she did’s messing with her head. She needs time,” Rocket explained. “Just give her some space for a while.”

“What if I lost her?” Peter asked helplessly. “I…I _can’t.”_

“Not like you ever really had her.”

“You don’t _get_ it, man,” Peter sighed. “I’ve been watching her and just wishing she’d feel about me what I felt about her for _three years,_ and I was so, _so_ close. And then the minute I’m closer than I’ve ever been, she just…snaps. Runs away and shuts me out. She even sent that Michael dude to tutor me in her place today.”

“Look, Quill, you have to keep trying,” Rocket sighed. “You _were_ close. In a lot of ways, you were already there. And it’s not like that’s changed.”

“Hasn’t changed? Seriously?” Peter absentmindedly pressed the iPod’s “shuffle” button repeatedly. “She’s not even speaking to me! How can you call that ‘not changing’?!?”

“Okay, look,” Rocket sighed, digging his hands into his pockets. “You know how passionately I hate feelings, but I don’t really know how to explain this any other way. Whatever she felt for you is probably still there, even if she doesn’t want to admit it.”

“Yeah, that’s real reassuring,” Peter groaned. “Did I not already mention that she sent a guy she’s openly admitted to hating to tutor me so she won’t have to talk to me?!?”

“It’s like Nebula said. She’s running scared,” Rocket tried to reason. “You know how she is.”

“See, I really _don’t,”_ Peter contested. “She’s always been, like, weirdly open around me. Not like someone who’d run away as soon as she got close to someone.”

“Yeah, well, that’s because she has a weird thing with you,” Rocket answered impatiently. “But what I’m getting at is, you gotta talk to her. I mean, do you _want_ to spend the rest of your life listening to _Total Eclipse of the Heart_ on repeat and wondering what might have been?”

“That would be just fine,” Peter snapped.

“Yeah, well, news flash, you can’t do that, so either you consent to being miserable for the next several months or you get yourself together and go talk to Gamora!” Rocket countered. “Wake up and smell the flowers, Quill. Girls like that aren’t just going to show up on your doorstep. It takes effort. You gotta show her that she’s worth fighting for.”

“As inspirational as all of that is, I’m not entirely sure that you’re qualified to give me dating advice,” Peter shot back.

“I’ve watched you be in love with Gamora since we met, Peter. After three years, do ya really think I’m gonna let you get _this_ close and just let her go because you can’t get it together for ten minutes to talk things out?”

Peter ran his hand through his hair. “She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Rocket. Do you think I _want_ to lose her? Of _frickin’ course_ I don’t!”

“First off, don’t be dramatic, and second, if you don’t want to lose her, then don’t,” he replied. “It doesn’t have to end like this.”

“Love is harder than you realize,” Peter sighed.

“Yeah, okay, sure, that’s probably – I DON’T CARE!” Rocket almost shouted. “ _What – who –_ are you _waiting for?!?”_

“I don’t know, man,” Peter mumbled. “I just don’t know.”

“There’s nothing to know, Quill. Because whatever it is you’re waiting for is holding you back.” Rocket shook his head. “This is all you’ve wanted for _years!”_

“She was never mine to lose,” Peter responded.

“You are the biggest drama queen I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Rocket cut in. “Remind me where this has gotten you?”

“It’s my way of processing my emotions,” Peter explained, almost smiling. Irritating Rocket was all too easy and never lost its comedic value. Sometimes he needed a laugh at times like these.

“How ‘bout you process your feelings by getting off your butt and doing something about them?!?” Rocket suggested, irritated to the core.

“Someday you’ll understand what I’m going through,” Peter declared, smiling cheekily at his friend.

“Well, at least you’re not being emo anymore,” Rocket sighed. “I think I’ve made my point. I’m gonna go have fun eating an entire stuffed-crust pepperoni pizza by myself.” He shot Peter an annoyed glance and left, nearly slamming his door.

“That’s all great, but you’ve clearly never heard the phrase ‘easier said than done,’” Peter called after him.

“You’ve done plenty of non-easy things in your life. How is this any worse?” He responded.

Peter shrugged and jammed the earbuds back into his ears.

“It just is.”

In the back of his mind, Peter knew he had to do this or risk losing his shot for good, but that seemed an insurmountable task. He reshuffled his mother’s playlist and flopped back down on his bed, wondering how he’d gotten himself into this mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Creds to @sharkinterviewee for essentially demanding this chapter, inspiring me to write it quickly, and my lovely IRL friend Sophia for her help compiling the playlist we made, our take on Meredith Quill's Awesome Mixes in the context of this story: 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/hipeepuls/playlist/3zLzofohevH2xkF760sDYN?si=QoG7uyXGQBy2Z6DiN9_3aw
> 
> Most of these songs have an explanation behind why we chose them, but some are just oldies I like. I'll get into this later. Also, I changed the Walkman to an iPod Shuffle because if we follow the timeline where Peter's mother dies when he's about ten, that would have been in 2010, when those were one of the main music devices.
> 
> Also, anyone notice the "I just don't know" parallel between this chapter and the last one?


	11. only need the light when it's burning low

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Valentine's Day. Sadly, its timing is quite unfortunate. 
> 
> (Title is from "Let Her Go" by Passenger.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Face battling" = strange way of saying "kissing."  
> (And no, it's not *them* kissing, but it's Valentine's Day. Stuff happens.)

“If I see one more box of chocolates, I’m gonna hurl,” Rocket spat, walking by two strangers battling faces at the lockers. One of them held a bouquet of roses in one hand.

“Yeah,” Peter sighed, watching the facial combatants almost sadly.

“Hey, let me remind you that it ain’t no one’s fault but yours that that isn’t you,” he pointed out. “You and Gamora still ignoring each other?”

“Kinda, I guess?”

“And by that he means yes, they are,” Nebula cut in. “Happy Single-Shaming Day, by the way!”

“Hnghh,” Peter grunted in reply.

“If it’s any consolation, Gamora’s sulking in the bathroom right now,” she informed them, casually popping a gum bubble.

“She is?” Peter looked up so quickly he almost saw stars. “Can I-“

“I mean, I’d say go for it, but I know you’d chicken out,” Nebula sighed. “You two are _infuriating.”_

“What? She’s the one who ran away, not me!” Peter shot back.

“Yeah, and you’re the one who didn’t go after her.”

“Biker chick has a point,” Rocket concurred.

“Don’t call me that.”

“What, would you rather I call you Crab or something?”

“Crab?” Nebula’s eyes narrowed.

“Double meaning,” Rocket explained. “First, you snap at everyone, and second, ever heard of the Crab Nebula?” He looked altogether too pleased with himself.

 “How long did that one take you?” Nebula replied, her tone baring her utter disgust.

“About two days,” Rocket admitted. “But hey, worth it!”

The three wandered aimlessly through the halls of canoodling youths and empty chocolate wrappers, not going anywhere except where they already weren’t. Even Rocket and Nebula fell silent (talking ran too high a risk of betraying their intentions), apparently calling a silent ceasefire in their perpetual catfight. And Peter stared at the ground ahead – the only thing he knew to do when every view he’d find if he looked up reminded him of why this should have been a great day but instead was pure misery. He tried not to think about what Nebula had told him.

(The image of Gamora curled up in the corner of the girls’ bathroom with silent tears cascading down her cheeks was one he decidedly didn’t need right now.)

This holiday, Peter decided then and there, had the worst timing.

* * *

 

“Are you okay?”

At least eight voices, few if any of which Gamora cared to identify, had repeated the same phrase since she’d wandered in here looking for a quiet place to release her pent-up emotions. She’d reassured them with a shaky “I’m fine, thanks” that none of them had bought and curled back into herself.

 _Get yourself together,_ she told herself. _How are you still crying over that kiss?!?_

She didn’t need to think about it to know immediately that it wasn’t about the kiss anymore, if it even ever had been. Gamora had never been traumatized by the act of kissing Peter. That part –

 _That was…nice,_ she admitted.

It was letting herself get so tantalizingly close to someone that had torn down the walls she’d spent years building up so that no one could ever scale them. It was the desire to preserve the part of herself she already knew without admitting it that she’d given him that made her run. And it was the thought that he might actually have _loved_ her – the kind of love that made him want to make stupid math puns and bring her coffee to make her smile, the kind that let him accept her “maybe not,” the kind that stuck around – that made her wish for all the world that she’d stayed.

Gamora would never, in her previous life when feelings like this were thrown in storage, have admitted that even in the privacy of her own mind, never let it get to her the way it was now. She’d been angry when Nebula let slip that she’d been pulling strings to get her to see what she finally now saw in Peter far too late. But now she could see that no matter what she said, her sister was right. He had been the best part of the last few months even as he annoyed her halfway to oblivion. They’d given each other things, even without saying the words to make it “real” in public eye, that neither would have had alone. She gave Peter the will to succeed. He gave Gamora the spark – a sort of joie de vivre – that her own will to succeed had all but exterminated.

She’d never say it, but seeing the couples draped all over each other across campus in celebration of this _stupid_ holiday, she couldn’t help but think that she’d had something not one of those people had ever even seen.

And she’d lost it.

No matter what Nebula said about this being reversible, Gamora felt as if she’d lost Peter the moment she ran.

“Gamora?”

A familiar voice broke the cold silence in the room. Gamora snapped out of her thoughts. “Yeah?”

“Are you all right?” Mantis asked. “You seem very upset. I am probably not going to believe you if you say you are fine again.” She crossed her arms and lifted her chin in what she no doubt thought was an authoritative gesture.

“Love sucks,” was all she said in reply.

“I don’t know anything about it, but I am sure that it does.” Mantis crouched down next to her. “Talking to Peter worked the first time I suggested it, didn’t it?”

“I don’t think he wants anything to do with me,” Gamora lamented.

“How would you know that if you haven’t talked to him at all?” Mantis asked.

“Uh…”

“Exactly. He’s been miserable at ever session he’s come to.”

“He has?” Something like regret flickered across Gamora’s face.

“Michael is a terrible tutor,” Mantis sighed. “He is so bad at explaining things that it is almost funny.”

“And?”

“…I’ve talked to Nebula,” she admitted.

“Has _everyone?!?”_ Gamora snapped, too weary to sound truly vitriolic.

“Almost,” Mantis replied. “Anyway, she told me he’s, quote, ‘melodramatically pining over you, like he’s in a sad music video or something.’”

She shook her head. “Sounds about right.”

“He still loves you! When are you going to realize that running from the problem won’t change that?”

“I got too close,” she mumbled.

“But you have to get close before you can arrive,” Mantis countered. “Wait…did that make any sense?”

“Not much, but thanks.” Gamora smiled tiredly.

“Well, still. Attachment is not a handicap,” Mantis pointed out. “I don’t care what your father told you. It’s not.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready to face him either way.”

“That’s okay. He’ll wait.” Mantis turned to leave, and looked back briefly. “But not forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this is the last pining chapter! Next will be scheming and the following three will be resolution.
> 
> (Also I was way too proud of that crab joke, heh. Oops...I am a massive nerd.)


	12. even if the skies get rough (i won't give up on us)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gamora needs an intervention. Rocket and Nebula are more than willing to make that happen. 
> 
> Title is from "I Won't Give Up" by Jason Mraz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rocket is super OOC here, and I've already explained why Nebula is OOC throughout this entire thing, but I really wanted to make this a thing, so I did it anyway.

“Do you have an appointment with Mr. Thanos?” A nonplussed doorman asked, staring quizzically at the scrawny, disheveled teenager on the doorstep.

“I’m a friend of Nebula’s and she knows I’m coming,” Rocket explained. “Could you please let me-“

“Let him in, Ronan!” Nebula called from a few rooms over.

“All right,” the doorman (Ronan?) sighed, reluctantly opening the door about two inches to allow Rocket in.

“Nebula?” Gamora shouted from what sounded like somewhere upstairs. Rocket thought he could hear footsteps pounding the upper floor. “What’s the noise about?”

“Nothing,” Nebula called back, sauntering into the room. “She should be down any minute,” she told Rocket.

“So…what am I saying again?” He asked.

“Whatever you think will convince her.”

“Yeah, uh, that’s gonna take a miracle,” Rocket huffed.

“Then you better make one happen,” Nebula demanded.

“ _Rocket?”_ Gamora asked, incredulous, as she came down the stairs.

“Hey. We gotta talk.”

Gamora sighed impatiently. “Is this about Peter? If this is about Peter-“

“No, no, _no,_ you are going to stay here and hear him out,” Nebula hissed.

“Look, Nebula, whatever I had with Peter is – it’s done. Over. Finished! So can you _please-“_

“Yeah, that ain’t happening, sorry,” Rocket interjected casually. “I did not come all the way out here and almost get tossed out the door by your butler-“

“Doorman,” Gamora corrected.

“Okay, sure, _doorman,_ anyway. I did not come all the way out here and almost get tossed out the door by your _doorman_ to have you refuse to listen to me. So you,” Rocket said, “are going to listen to me.”

“I could throw you into the neighbors’ backyard in an instant,” Gamora warned.

“You’re right. You could,” Rocket agreed. “But you won’t.”

“Oh?” Gamora raised her eyebrows. “And how exactly are you so certain?”

Rocket smirked. “Because even if you won’t admit it, you care too much about Peter to ignore me.”

“I do not!” She protested.

“Stop lying to yourself,” Nebula responded tiredly.

“So what were you going to say?”

“Okay, we all know that Peter is a hot mess in general, right?” Rocket began.

“I was made intimately aware of this, yes,” Gamora responded. “Sadly.”

“Well, being a clueless mess is so normal for him that I usually don’t notice it, but I’m telling you, Gamora, he is _a hot, hot mess_ right now,” he continued.  

“That’s unfortunate, but what’s it got to do with me?”

“You can’t seriously be asking him that,” Nebula remarked, shaking her head hopelessly.

“Okay…so maybe I had _something_ to do with it,” Gamora admitted.

Rocket looked at her with what she guessed was every ounce of emotion his five feet and four inches of concentrated snark contained. “He doesn’t know what to do with himself without you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, look, I get that you’re not the sentimental type, but he’s been in love with you for _three-and-a-half years._ Think about that. He’s been chasing you around since he was a tiny little freshman” – Rocket snickered despite all his efforts not to – “and he finally thought he had a chance with all this tutoring stuff.”

“He did,” Gamora mumbled.

“Yeah, _that_ much was clear,” Nebula spat.

“So you hang out a lot, you get closer, you give him an answer other than ‘no,’ and as your grand finale, you straight-up kiss him in a room full of people. Think about it. You’ve made him think you feel the same way about him that he has about you all these years. And then you run from it.” Rocket’s glare could have cut through titanium. “Look, I get that you’re scared. Trust me, I know how tough it is to let someone get close to you like that. But this one – this is worth it.”

“He’s right,” Nebula pointed out. “You guys are perfect for each other. His GPA jumped a full two grade points because of you! And he got you to dance, and laugh at his lame puns, and finally open up to someone for once. Gamora, you two make each other better versions of yourselves. Don’t throw that away. Please.”

“You guys just don’t get it,” Gamora whispered.

“Actually…” Nebula started.

“We do,” Rocket finished. “We’re an unbiased third party! How much more objective could we get?!”

“You’re the best friend of the guy I’ve been trying to avoid for three months,” Gamora responded nonchalantly. “That sure sounds unbiased to me…”

“Yeah, but I’m your sister, and sometimes I feel like I know you better than you know yourself,” Nebula countered. “For once, don’t run from your problems. Who wants to live their whole life being chased around by all the problems they never solved?”

“That was kinda poetic,” Rocket commented, sounding somewhat impressed.

“Thanks,” Nebula responded, all of her characteristic disgust gone from her voice.

“The fact that Peter actually managed to make you two not only behave civilly towards each other, but actually become _friends,_ is somewhat hard for me to believe,” Gamora sighed.

“See? _See?!?”_ Rocket insisted. “He builds bridges and brings people together! Clearly, that is what you need in your life!”

“You sound like a bad commercial for the Peace Corps,” Gamora replied, unimpressed.

“Trust me, I’m just as disgusted with myself,” Rocket scoffed. “But he’s done a lot for me. Gotta pay it forward.”

“You’re trying to win me back as a favor for him?” Gamora asked archly.

“No, he just has to make it sound that way so he won’t end up admitting that he’s a gigantic softie,” Nebula answered.

“I am no such thing,” Rocket hissed.

“Okay, _anyway._ You need to talk things out with Peter. That is all. Intervention over. We’ve already told you why. And believe me, if you still won’t listen, I’m going to steal your phone and do it for you,” Nebula threatened, “over text.”

“But then I _have_ to!” Gamora protested.

Nebula and Rocket shared a look of utter triumph.

“That was the point,” Rocket interjected helpfully. He promptly left. “Good luck!”

Gamora tried her best to look offended, but even she knew she didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be another of those two-part chapters showing the same event from both Peter and Gamora's perspectives, so the next will be Peter's "intervention." Hope you're enjoying this! I can't believe I'm almost done :O 
> 
> Also, Ronan is the doorman here, because I could. ;)
> 
> ENDNOTE: I decided to double update today...am I moving this too fast? I think I might be moving this too fast. Heh...


	13. give her every reason to accept that you're for real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's finally time to do something about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of fun writing this. No idea why. It just made me happy, and I hope this made you happy too. 
> 
> (Title is from "Tell Her About It" by Billy Joel.)
> 
> ADDENDUM:  
> Everything about this chapter is unrealistic. Oh well!

“I see you brought a friend this time,” Peter remarked, barely looking up from his physics textbook as Rocket stormed through his bedroom door with Nebula in tow.

“Hi, Peter. Welcome to your intervention,” Nebula announced.

“Uh, sorry, _what?”_ Peter blinked, wondering if he was seeing things.

“I said, ‘welcome to your-‘”

“Yeah, I got that part,” Peter cut her off. “Just…why?”

“We need to talk to you about Gamora,” Rocket explained.

Peter sighed dramatically. “I thought we’d already been _over_ this,” he whined.

“Review is always good,” Nebula replied. “Besides, I have inside information.”

That got Peter’s attention. “What?” He closed his textbook ( _since when does he study?_ Rocket thought) and turned his desk chair to face his friends.

“I know she still has feelings for you,” Nebula insisted. “She won’t admit it, but it’s obvious.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna need concrete evidence if you want me to actually do anything about this,” Peter shot back.

“We’ve both talked to her,” Rocket offered. “She’s just scared. Nothing changed between you, just like I’ve told you a hundred million times already. She freaked herself out when she kissed you and now she doesn’t know what to do with herself – same old, same old.”

“But if she’s really that scared, I’m not going to be able to get close enough to her to change anything,” Peter protested. “I don’t want to push her too far-“

“Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Nebula reassured him. “She’s got to learn that nothing she’s ever been told about love is true.”

“Which means…?” Peter prompted.

“She needs to know what it looks like in real life,” Nebula explained. “I’m not going to get into it, but we’ve had a tough life. Gamora’s never really had the opportunity to realize that feelings are not inherently evil.”

“Okay, and I’m supposed to fix that how?” Peter asked, running one hand through his hair anxiously.

“Just be yourself,” Nebula responded. “She doesn’t want or need anything more.”

“Has the real Nebula been taken by aliens?” Peter wondered aloud. “Since when are you such a romantic?”

“Rocket suggested that it might be easier to sway you with pathos than-“

“English, please?”

“Feelings. He thought I could more effectively manipulate you if I played on your feelings.”

“I did suggest that,” Rocket confirmed. “It was a good suggestion.” He looked quite proud of himself.

“Okay, so you want me to go talk to her?” Peter asked, still entirely confused by Nebula’s jumble of waxing poetic and appeals to emotion.

“Yeah, exactly,” she replied. “I don’t know what you should say. That’s on you. I think you know better than I do what she needs to hear.”

“Okay,” Peter consented. “No promises.”

“Of course,” Rocket said. “We’re counting on you. Don’t fail.”

“Wow, okay…” Peter watched them leave with mild disbelief on his face.

_What did I just let them talk me into?_

* * *

 

It had occurred to Peter the night of his “intervention” that it might be beneficial to write something down so he at least had somewhat an idea of what he was going to throw out the window in a fit of nerves as soon as he caught sight of Gamora. He carried the slip of paper in the pocket of his letterman jacket the entire day, sometimes shoving his hands into his pockets to make sure it was still there. Figuring it wasn’t safe enough there (there might be a hole it could fall through!), he stashed it between two of the pages of his physics textbook as he walked into tutoring. Anticipating another awful afternoon with Michael, he didn’t bother to look up.

“H-hey, Peter,” a shaky voice greeted him.

Peter could have sworn he nearly died of shock.

“ _Gamora?”_ He asked, barely above a whisper.

“Yeah, it’s…me again.”

He couldn’t stop his face from breaking into what he was sure was the dorkiest grin imaginable. “You have _no idea_ how happy I am to see you here!”

“T-thanks,” she muttered, bright red as she stared at the table.

“…because Michael sucks at explaining things,” Peter added, figuring that had been too forward. “But also because I’m just happy to see you in general, and-“

“We need to talk.”

“I agree,” Peter concurred.

She looked at him inquiringly. “Did you…get a talk from Rocket and Nebula?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, the ‘intervention’… _wait._ Did you… _”_

“I got one too,” Gamora informed him.

“You have to be kidding me. They’re setting us up?” Peter barely managed to get out before he burst out into peals of hysterical laughter. “Oh, that’s rich! What’d they tell you? I got ‘just be yourself and make her realize that emotions aren’t inherently evil.’”

“Mine was ‘don’t run from your problems or you’ll live life with regrets,’ or something like that.” Gamora shook her head. “They’re insane, I know.” 

“Yeah, they are.” Peter smiled fondly.

“And…you’re…kinda cute when you’re laughing,” Gamora admitted under her breath, wondering almost immediately why she’d said it, but not too sure if she wasn’t happy she’d let it slip.

He’d heard it anyway, mile-wide smile not leaving his face for a second.

“You…really think so?” He asked, almost blushing.

“Yeah,” she replied timidly, “I do.”

“That’s kinda crazy to think about considering that you’re gorgeous in all situations, ever-“ He paused, even redder. “I should shut up, shouldn’t I.”

“No, _actually,”_ Gamora teased, “please go on.”

“Sorry, can’t. You’ve got me tongue-tied,” Peter responded.

For a moment they simply looked at each other, and their expressions spelled out the same message – _I must be dreaming, and I don’t want to wake up._

Until, that is, their moment was interrupted by an unearthly squeal.

“Mantis!” Gamora admonished. “We’re trying to have a moment here!”

“Remarkable,” Drax, having his English grade salvaged once again, commented, in the loudest whisper any of the three had ever heard. “Quill has done something decently assertive for once!”

Peter took Gamora’s hand across the table and squeezed it. “Yes,” he said cheekily, “he has.”

“You are a shameless attention hog,” Gamora chastised.

“You know you love me.”

“No comment.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALMOST DONE AHHHHHH! Only two chapters to go!  
> Tomorrow's will have our favorite dorks bonding on grad night at a theme park. And last up we've got graduation! It's a long shot, but I really hope I can make someone cry with the final chapter, lol. I have no idea what the timing on those is going to be, but it may be faster than two days if I get excited again. Happy reading! :)


	14. for once i can say this is mine, you can't take it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The grad night chapter, better described as "1500 words of pure and utter sap." 
> 
> Title is from "For Once in My Life" by Michael Buble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the cheesiest thing ever and makes no sense. Sorry...? 
> 
> An explanation of something pertinent: where I live, at the end of the school year, all of the high school seniors had a grad night event. In my area, they went to a popular theme park. I don’t know if this is the case elsewhere, but it worked well here, so I went ahead and made up a theme park at which our characters spent grad night.
> 
> Also, I made Knowhere the name of a theme park, and I do not know how to deal with this information.

Gamora slipped silently into the aisle seat next to Peter’s, so catlike he didn’t even turn. He stared out the window absentmindedly with the dreamy expression she’d come to know better than she’d like to admit, earbuds blocking out the entire world.

 _A missile could fall on the bus and he wouldn’t even look up,_ she observed fondly.

“Make sure you’re wearing your seatbelts!” A disgruntled teacher trying to appear peppy reminded the bus full of rambunctious seniors. No one heeded her warning; she didn’t seem to care much. But for once, Peter looked up. He glanced to the front, and then to each side, as looking for something. His eyes didn’t fall upon her until the last seconds of his visual scan; when they did, his expression softened.

“Hey, Gamora,” he greeted her, almost tenderly.

“H-hey,” she responded, trying not to let her heart melt the way it wanted to. “Whatcha listening to?”

Peter’s entire face lit up. “You really want to know?” he asked, almost disbelieving.

“Yeah, of course I do. I mean, I did ask.”

“iPod Shuffle,” he explained, holding up the ancient device. “It was my mom’s. She, uh, she passed away when I was a kid, and she made me this special playlist right before that, on here. Haven't been without it since.”

“I had no idea,” Gamora stammered. “I’m sorry I asked-“

“No, really. It’s important to me. I’m glad you did,” Peter reassured her. “Wanna listen?”

“Of course,” she replied, trying to contain the color flaring up in her cheeks as he gently placed one of his earbuds in her ear. A silky – and incredibly _loud –_ saxophone filled her ear and it took all she had not to jump.

“That’s a little loud,” she muttered. “Also, _Careless Whisper_?” She asked, her tone betraying mild amusement.

“One of my mom’s favorites. I have no idea why,” Peter answered, staring out the window absentmindedly.

Gamora smiled to herself. “Looking forward to grad night?” She asked.

“Huh?” Peter removed his one remaining earbud. “Sorry, didn’t catch that. What?”

“Are you looking forward to grad night?” She repeated.

“’Course I am. Some guys on the football team last year told me they clear out the whole park for the night and it’s just our school,” Peter told her. “I mean, Knowhere with _no lines?”_

“I’ve never been,” Gamora replied. “But I’ve heard good things.”

“You’ve never been to Knowhere?” Peter shook his head. “That is just sad.”

“What? It’s not like I get out much,” she snapped.

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” He scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “You’re gonna love it, though.”

“It’s fun, I’m assuming?”

“The most fun.” Peter tentatively took her hand. “And even if you don’t like it, I’ll make sure you have a good time.”

Gamora initially stiffened at the contact and he released her hand immediately. She took it back – _no, don’t –_ and gave it a squeeze to make it clear that this time she wouldn’t pull away.

“You,” she concluded, “are a literal human puppy.”

“I’m taking that as a compliment,” Peter responded.

“Make of it what you will.”

“Everyone loves puppies. Duh. So basically, you just said that everybody loves me,” he gloated.

“You irritate me, Quill.”

“You know you love me, ‘Mora,” he teased.

Her pulse quickened at that. Nicknames were perhaps her greatest guilty pleasure; she’d always wanted one but wouldn’t in a million years have admitted it.

“I…have a nickname now?” She asked.

“If you want one,” Peter replied. “Do ya?”

“Absolutely.” She smiled shyly up at him, the way she’d always seen girls in movies look at their love interests, but always imagined was somehow beneath her. _Funny what six months can do._

“You know, this song reminds me of us,” Peter told her, tapping his foot along.

“Oh?” Gamora asked. _Uptown Girl? Why?_ She thought, failing to see any resemblance. “How so?”

“Well, it’s about this guy who’s in love with a girl who’s way out of his league – like, really high-class and all,” he started. “And he’s kind of a nothing, so no one thinks he has a shot. But he wants to try anyway, you know?”

“And this reminds you of me how?” Gamora asked, wanting to hear what she already knew in the voice she’d come to love more than she’d ever admit.

“You’re that girl,” he said softly, gently rubbing circles on the back of her hand with his thumb. “You were a million leagues above mine, but that didn’t stop me.”

“I really wasn’t,” Gamora admitted, staring at the back of the seat in front of her in the hopes that she could hide the scarlet flush on her cheeks.

Peter looked at her incredulously. “Me? Really? You’re so beyond my level it’s not even funny.”

“No I’m not. Want to know why?” She replied.

“Sure,” Peter said skeptically, “but I doubt you’ll convince me.”

“Because you have a heart. And some days I don’t know if I can say that of myself.”

 He looked at her with even more confusion. “You stayed. That alone proves that you do.”

“But not after I ditched you for three months and broke your heart, if Rocket’s information is accurate, because _I_ couldn’t deal with my own issues,” she countered, voice hitching with emotion she desperately wished she could conceal.

Peter squeezed her hand again, taking her other one and turning him to face her. “But you came back to me. That’s all that matters,” he reassured her.

“You confuse me on every possible level,” Gamora sighed. “And I think I like it.”

“I do too,” Peter agreed, “my uptown girl.”

Gamora rolled her eyes fondly. “You are ridiculous.”

“And so are you.” Peter wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

She pretended not to see Rocket cracking up two rows behind them on the opposite side of the bus and leaned into his side, feeling terrifyingly warm and whole and secure in a way so foreign that it frightened her.

 

* * *

 

“See? That was fun, wasn’t it?” Peter asked, taking her by the arm and out of the exit area of the most nauseating roller coaster Gamora had ever experienced.

“I mean, I feel like my stomach is in my throat, but I guess it wasn’t terrible,” she sighed, wrapping her free arm around herself in the hopes that her sweatshirt would keep the cold out (though it never did).

“You cold?” he asked.

“No,” she instinctively responded.

“She’s definitely cold,” a girl Peter vaguely recognized as one of Gamora’s friends from the New Years party cut in.

“Here.” Peter shrugged off his sweatshirt. “Wear this.”

“Thank you, but…I said I was fine,” Gamora stammered.

“You are not fine. You are going to wear this and I don’t care what anyone says.”

“I sometimes hate you,” she sighed, slipping the six-size-too-big sweatshirt over her head.

“I know you do,” he chuckled. “Looks nice on you.”

“Thanks,” she replied, only slightly flustered for the fact that she was wearing Peter Quill’s sweatshirt from (she glanced down to read the graphic on the front) the 2016 CIF Finals in public and that was not something with which she was at all comfortable.

“Ooh, _Gamora!”_ One of her friends cried from at least eight places back in the next line they waited in. “Nice sweatshirt!”

“What?” She hissed.

“…never mind,” said friend demurred.

Peter draped an arm around her shoulders again. “She has a point.”

“What point would that be?” Gamora asked.

“That you look adorable in that?” He replied. “I mean, it’s just a fact. The sky is blue, water is wet, Gamora looks good in my sweatshirts.”

“You really are ridiculous,” she sighed, but that didn’t stop her from leaning comfortably against his chest. “Warm and good for leaning on, but ridiculous.”

“You know you love it.”

“Right, like I loved that roller coaster that almost made me throw up all over those guys in front of us,” Gamora deadpanned.

“You _did,”_ Peter protested. “I could see it on your face.”

“Okay, sure, so I didn’t hate it,” Gamora admitted. “…anyway. Do you still have the iPod on you?”

Peter nodded. “Of course. Never go anywhere without it.” He offered her an earbud. “Want to listen?”

“Sure.” Gamora accepted the headphone, closing her eyes as the music began to play.  

“I’m glad we fixed whatever was wrong with us,” Peter commented, draping his arm around her shoulder.

“Yeah,” Gamora shyly agreed. “I missed you.”

“I did too.”

“I think we needed each other,” Gamora observed.

“Me too. At least, I knew I needed you all along,” Peter admitted, tenderly sheepish.

Gamora didn’t say anything – what was there to be said? – and let herself soak in the moment. They glanced at each other, soft and full of promise and of fear of the nebulous unknowns of their futures. Peter leaned ever so slightly to kiss her forehead and her pulse quickened – _you’ve kissed him in public and this still fazes you? –_ but she didn’t back away from him, burying herself under his arm even more.

She wished she could have thanked him, in that moment. For loving her when she made a mess of things, for staying when she ran from him, for everything he’d given her these past six months.

But the words didn’t want to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was very reluctant to actually include the whole Uptown Girl bit, because idek honestly, but I did, so I hope it sorta worked. It fits them in the context of this AU. 
> 
> Also, Holy Roman Empire, this thing is ONE CHAPTER FROM DONE? THE HECK? HOW? What am I going to do with myself when I finish this? eihiheoiwhfoiw whoa. 
> 
> (And yes, as both a massive history nerd and someone who stubbornly refuses to curse, "Holy Roman Empire" is actually an exclamation that I use, and I will not apologize for this. Wink.)


	15. kiss today goodbye (and point me towards tomorrow)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graduation can mean more than just goodbye.
> 
> (Title is from “What I Did For Love” from A Chorus Line.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINAL CHAPTER! AHHHHHH! *internal screaming*  
> Sorry if I got the order of events at a graduation ceremony wrong - I have yet to graduate, so I don't know exactly what order things happen in and had to google it.

“Quit pacing. You’re making me nervous,” Nebula complained, tossing an apple up and down in one hand absentmindedly.

“I’m the one who has to give a speech!” Gamora countered.

“Yeah, and I have to watch you give a speech, which is worse.”

“It’s a good speech,” Gamora hissed. “A really good speech.”

“I’m sure it is.” Nebula took a bite out of the apple. “But your pacing is freaking me out.”

“I’m _so_ sorry I’m _justifiably_ nervous.”

“You need to chill.”

“No, _you_ need to be okay with my completely understandable lack of chill,” Gamora shot back.

“All right, stop pacing or I’m calling Quill to forcibly restrain you!” Nebula snapped, smirking deviously as her sister’s face reddened. She stopped moving. “That’s what I thought.”

“I truly hate you,” Gamora sighed.

“Likewise.”

Gamora scanned the printout in her hands once more and tried to convince herself that the worst was almost over. 

* * *

 

It was a day far, far too hot for any sane person to be outside. Add graduation gowns and a speech from someone barely anyone had ever heard of that lasted far too long, and the heat was downright stifling.

“I’ll never understand why they thought it was a good idea to make us wear full-body polyester in June,” Rocket complained.

“I think I’m going to lose half my body weight in sweat by the time we’re done,” a girl behind him agreed.

“Isn’t talking about how hot it is going to make the heat worse?” someone else cut in.

Rocket was no longer paying attention to that exchange, which had been picked up by the people behind him (who were now absorbed in a fervent debate about whether or not paying attention to the heat would make them feel hotter). “Quill, you look nauseated,” he commented.

“Nah, ‘m fine.” Peter attempted to wipe the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “It’s just hot and I’m kinda freaking out.”

“About what? In two hours, we’re _free!”_

“I don’t know, I just am,” he responded vaguely.

“O-kay, that’s not weird at all.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure you will be.” Rocket smirked. “You might wanna tone down the heart eyes, though.”

“The what?” to Rocket’s amazement, Peter sounded utterly baffled.

“Have you noticed that every time you see your _girlfriend-“_

“She’s not technically my girlfriend,” Peter informed him.

“Okay. Every time you see your _not-girlfriend,_ you look like your face is gonna melt?”

“I wha-wait, no I don’t!” Peter protested, his eyes narrowing defensively.

“Dude.” Rocket shook his head. “You’re even more oblivious than I thought. Anyway. She’s gotta give a speech and you might want to take that down a few notches. And by that I mean take it down to the ‘off’ notch.”

“I can’t stop doing something I never even did!”

“You’re lying to yourself, Quill…”

“Today we celebrate a milestone in the lives of these students,” the principal ( _wait, when did he start talking?_ Rocket wondered) announced, cutting off the exchange.

“Wait, when did he start talking…?” Peter asked.

“No idea, but you should probably shut up now.”

“Right.”

Both stared at some combination of the ground, other students, or the backdrop of the makeshift stage until the principal jolted them out of their thoughts yet again with, “it is my great honor to present our Class of 2018 valedictorian-“

“Well, guess I have to pay attention now,” Rocket sighed, leaning back with his hands behind his head and still decidedly not paying attention even as Gamora took the stage for her address.

“Faculty, classmates, and families – good morning,” Gamora began, pausing to inhale, “and congratulations on reaching this turning point in all of our lives.”

“Quill, you’re staring,” Rocket hissed.

“Am not!” Peter protested.

“Shut up!” Someone behind them whisper-shouted.

“As you look back upon the four years spent within these walls, you no doubt will find that they flew by in what felt like an instant some days and an eternity on others. It was here that we faced our greatest challenges and celebrated our greatest triumphs. Our lives have been shaped by the events of those years. And now they draw to a close. Perhaps you’re asking yourself, ‘what now’?”

Gamora paused and took in a ragged gulp of air, trying to calm her nerves, not to look at the sea of people awaiting her next words. _This is nothing. Don’t psych yourself out._

“The years ahead of us are likely full of new challenges, but even moreso, they will present us with new opportunities. And by using what we have learned in our time here, we will be prepared to take full advantage of every one of them. For the gift of knowledge and self-discovery, I’d like to thank-“

“She looks terrified,” Peter observed. “Surprising.”

“Probably afraid she’ll mess up in front of her dad or something,” Rocket guessed.

“I would also like to thank the incredible classmates who’ve helped me through every conceivable disaster high school could throw at me, and made sure there was never a dull moment in my time here. You are the reason it’s difficult to leave this chapter of my life behind, and I sincerely hope that we’ll continue to be a part of each others’ lives far into the future.”

“She’s not talking about you,” Rocket whispered, trying to snap Peter out of his goggle-eyed trance.

“You don’t know that,” he hissed.

“She’s not.”

“Shh! I’m trying to listen!”

“I, like so many of you, am forever grateful for everything my high school experience has given me. And now that it is over, let all of us boldly navigate our futures with the confidence of the knowledge that we already have all the tools we need.”  

Gamora nearly slumped against the speaker’s podium in relief, but she kept her composure long enough to return to her seat. Several of the people sitting around her offered vague congratulations. She barely heard them.

_It’s finally over._

 

* * *

**September 21 st, 2018 **

Gamora traced her fingers across the glossy, sloppily-applied wrapping paper over the small box in her hands, reading its inscription one last time – _open on the way to college._ Curious as she was to know what it held, she almost wished she could keep it wrapped the way it had been when Peter had given it to her that day in June. It held more than its gift; it was her last tenable grip on his memory.

**June 4 th, 2018**

_Gamora had barely been able to set her graduation cap back on her head after tossing it high into the air before she felt herself being engulfed in a bone-crushing hug._

_“We made it.”_

_She looked up. “We did. I also can’t breathe.”_

_“Sorry!” Peter loosened his grip on her. “Guess I got a little too excited. Great speech, by the way!”_

_“Thanks,” she mumbled. “I thought I was going to pass out.”_

_“From the heat?” Peter asked._

_“No, nerves,” Gamora explained. “Don’t know why, really. I was afraid I’d trip over my words or something.”_

_“You were perfect.” He lifted her chin. “And inspiring.”_

_“Was not,” she scoffed. “That speech was generic enough to have been pulled off the internet.”_

_“I was still inspired,” Peter insisted. “Also, it’s way too hot.”_

_“It is,” Gamora agreed. “Want to find some shade?”_

_He nodded, leading her up the stairs and out of the stadium into a shaded bank of trees. They stood back against a railing and looked out over the stadium full of shouting, elated, sweltering people._

_“I never thought I’d miss this place, but I think I will.”_

_“Maybe it’s not the place you’re going to miss,” Gamora replied._

_“Maybe it’s not,” he responded softly. “Maybe it’s you.”_

_“I swear I wasn’t talking about myself when I said that-“_

_“You should have been,” Peter told her, gently running his thumb down her cheek._

_“You mean-“ Gamora sputtered, too flustered even to finish._

_“Yeah,” he breathed. “I mean I’m going to miss the best thing that’s ever happened to me when I leave.”_

_“I guess I’ll miss you too,” she admitted, looking off into the distance before she had a chance to voice her thoughts. Peter moved in closer and rested his hand lightly on her arm._

_“If I kiss you,” he started, barely more than whispering, “would you run away this time?”_

_Gamora felt as if her heart had stopped for a moment, a sensation she couldn’t truthfully describe as unpleasant._

_“No. Not this time.”_

_He lifted her chin to meet his and for a moment he simply gazed at her, as if he couldn’t believe she was real._

_And he kissed her like it was the first and the last time that he ever would._

_“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that,” he mumbled, pressing his forehead to hers, both hands cradling her face as if it were the most delicate, most precious thing he’d ever touched, not wanting to break away even after the kiss had ended._

_“I think I might,” Gamora whispered._

_She’d never realized it but in that moment, she could see, clear as day, that she’d been waiting for this – not him, maybe, not here or now – but for this feeling her entire life._

_That, she’d always remember, was the day when, away from the crowds where no one would ever find them, she was for the first time the recipient of the words, “I love you.”_

**September 21 st, 2018 **

_Oh, come on, just open it,_ one part of her mind pleaded, while the other held on, replaying the memory of her graduation day over and over. Curiousity won and she carefully peeled the tape from the package, a small box easily falling from the remains of the loose wrappings. Hands almost shaking, she slipped off its lid and read the note set on top of the gift.

_Gamora –_

_I thought my uptown girl might want a little something to remember me by._

_-Peter_

She smiled to herself. _How’d he remember that? Wait…_

_I think I know what this is._

Gamora hadn’t cried in seven years, two months, and four days, but in that moment, she nearly burst into tears on the spot.

Resting atop a wad of tissue paper was a chipped, worn-down, positively ancient iPod Shuffle.

 _You didn’t,_ she thought. _You couldn’t…_

It was his last link to his mother, she knew. He’d said he never left home without it. That iPod had been his most prized possession, anyone could see it. And he’d given it to _her,_ of all people?

 _Someday I’m going to thank you for that,_ she told herself, typing out what she hoped was a decently-composed text message before promptly deciding that composition was not what she needed right now.

For once in her life, Gamora threw caution to the wind and deleted her previous message, replacing it with the words she should have said months ago.

_I know I never told you this, but never forget that I love you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this story! It has been an incredibly fun and fulfilling ride, and no matter how much I may think this sucks, I am incredibly grateful to have had some awesome readers who kept me cranking this out at record pace with their awesome feedback!  
> Shoutouts to @LegoTea and @sharkinterviewee for their awesome feedback, as well as my IRL friend Sophia (who gave me the idea for the giving-Gamora-the-iPod bit and many other things), my other IRL friend Ali for the high school AU prompt, and everyone else who's supported this story along the way. Just THANK YOU for giving me the confidence to keep writing! I love you all and hope to be back soon with another crazy AU or something of the like. Happy reading!


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